Car Audio Versus The Time Tunnel

Last Sunday my wife and I went to Fry's Electronics (we won't go to Best Buy any more) to look at stuff. We had no real agenda, but ended up in an aisle looking at MP3 players. Then someone decided that there was no time like the present to turn the audio system in the laughable "soundproof hut" up to 11. And of course they were playing rap of some sort, and they'd screwed with the equalizer so it was nothing but bass.

It was like being in the Time Tunnel! My innards were vibrating, everything on the shelves around us was buzzing and vibrating, and my brain simply shut down. Nope, too much deep bass, I'm shutting down, you're on your own. I fully expected portals to other dimensions to open around me and for the Master Chief from Halo II to suddenly appear.

There are several things I have to say about this. The first is this: what kind of moron goes into a store and turns the car audio system up to 11 and leaves it there for a couple of minutes? The second is this: what kind of mobile audio department manager would let it go on for two minutes? The third is this: how come, every time someone turns the demo car stereos up to 11, it's always rap? I bet if I popped a Vader CD in the system and turned it up to 11, they'd tear-gas me out of the soundproof hut in a matter of seconds. Or a George Strait CD. Somehow it's okay, even expected, for everyone in the store to have to suffer through the rap, but God forbid anyone should play any other kind of music.

"But it's popular," they whine. Oh, so because it's popular, common decency no longer applies?

Once we were in Best Buy looking for a portable stereo for some reason or another, and they were all tuned to some rap radio station (Power 92, I think, not that I frequent that particular frequency very often). So my wife and I methodically retuned every last one of them to the local ASU-operated radio station that plays classical music (KBAQ, for what it's worth). I hope it pissed someone off, I really do.