Schumann vs. Van Halen

We spent the weekend in Pittsburgh, attending a reunion on Sean’s side. It was for all his mom’s cousins on her maternal side; my mother-in-law’s mom had seven siblings and each one married and had several children, so there are a lot of cousins out there. Some of them hadn’t seen each other in 40 years. 

I come from a much smaller family, and can’t conceive of an instance where I’d lose touch with any of my cousins. Of course, Facebook makes staying in touch much easier. Even if we can’t see each other regularly, we know what’s going on in each other’s lives by virtue of status updates. Of course, we also get the old fashioned status updates: phone calls from our moms.

On the six ½ hour drive back yesterday, Sean decided to take charge of the radio. This, my friends, is not good news for me. I realize he’s in the car, too, and should, at some point, get to control the radio. I realize this would be fair… But I generally try to maintain control at all times for fear of what he’ll find. Yesterday, I dozed off for just a second, and in that second he commandeered the controls and landed on this doozy:

Kids Place Live on XM does, occasionally, offer humorous recordings. "Mama Tooted," is not one of them. Of course, we already know my idea of humor is vastly different than Sean’s and the kids, but still.

Feeling emboldened with musical control, he then selected this fine station:

There have been times this station has played pieces I’ve enjoyed. This was not one of them. Even Sean agreed it wasn’t one of his favorites. So why didn’t he change the station? Difference #382 between my sweet husband and me: I change the station when there's a song on that's not a fav. Sean is content to listen through in the hopes a good one will come on.

We have over 200 stations. Why wait for something good?!

I took control at this point and put the radio back where it belongs: the 80’s channel. Seriously, why would you change from this one? As if to solidify my case the this is the channel to choose, look what was playing when I clicked over:

What an excellent driving song!

As with many of Van Halen’s songs, I don’t actually know what they’re talking about.* And the middle section does seem a little, well, lyrically weird. But I really, really love this song. Jump would have been preferred, but this is a seriously close second.

I hope Sean enjoyed his few moments of radio control. Because based on what he picked, there's no way I'm taking a nap on any of our car trips any time soon.


*Don't tell me what the song means. Ignorance is bliss.