Devil is in the detailing

My car, as longtime readers know, is a 1990 Oldsmobile.

Mostly, it's great.

A few weeks back, for a number of reasons, I took it to a horrible place to have its interior detailed. They returned it to me soaking wet, and, in what I believe was a related situation, the radio buttons didn't all quite work right.

Over time, the car dried out, and over more time, the radio magically started working properly again, which is good, because that's my only source of entertainment in that car.

Tonight, on my way to the bowling alley, the "scan" button wasn't doing exactly what it should. And then the volume wouldn't turn down, though it would turn up. And then the power wouldn't turn off. And then scan worked again. But the volume still wouldn't turn down. And would still turn up. (For those of you keeping track, I have now turned up the volume twice but cannot turn it down.) And the radio still won't turn off.

Which means that most of the way to the bowling alley, and all the way from the bowling alley to the supermarket, and all the way from the supermarket to my house, the radio HAS BEEN SCREAMING AT ME AT VERY TOP VOLUME. IT HAS TOLD ME ABOUT THE TYPHOON AND THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND WAS JUST ABOUT TO TELL ME ABOUT JIMMY KIMMELWHEN I got home and could turn the whole car off.

Edited to add: I was listening to conservative talk radio, as I sometimes do on short trips, and opted not to change the station. I know, it seems like that would be the worst, but it seemed more tolerable than listening to pop or country music at that volume, and less incongruous than trying to listen to NPR announcers calmly yelling at me.

Day 12 of our month of gratitude: Today, I am thankful for a blissfully short commute, which I can drive in three minutes or walk (sans radio) in twenty.*



*OK, so yes, I realized as I was writing that I could, and probably will, in the morning, just pull the fuse to the radio to turn it off. But again, only source of entertainment, so my gratitude stands. Also, these are the kinds of thoughts I am incapable of having when someone is screaming at me in a confined space.