My car stereo is fickle

My car has… a rather quirky sound system. Anyone who has ridden in it in the last two months can tell you this is true. Before this spring, when my CD player’s faceplate got stolen, it was perfectly normal. But after living the whole summer without any music at all, I installed a friend’s old tape deck right before the school year started, and that is when my stereo started to manifest some of its more unique qualities.

I still remember the first time I drove some of my new classmates in my car at the beginning of orientation week. I was all flustered and worried about impressing them with my impeccable taste in music (silly me ), so I plugged my iPod into the tape deck and put it on shuffle. The first song that came on was a Beatles hit—great, everybody liked that. This was going well!

One of the back speakers suddenly stopped working—”Oh well,” I thought, and I turned the volume up to compensate. That, of course, is when the speaker suddenly came back on and blew out the ear drums of the poor impressionable freshmen sitting in the back seat of my car. Then one of the side speakers went out. Then both the side speaker and the back speaker came on and went off and came on and went off until we reached our destination, and until my car’s audio system had been firmly established as a running joke.

So much for impressing them.

Since then, I have observed a few things about the behavior of my car’s stereo:

1. The speakers come on and off when jarred by something like a bump in the road. Or, like the door opening or closing. Or like me breathing. You know, reasonable stuff like that.
2. There is a sweet little spot on the dashboard directly above the temperature control panel that seems particularly receptive to such jarring impacts. If, for example, my speakers were to stop working and I were to level a blow with my hand, or my water bottle, or a nearby book at that exact spot, my speakers might magically begin working again! (Not that I would know from experience.)

I actually only discovered “the sweet spot” in the last couple of days. But now that you have that picture in mind, let me describe what this afternoon’s drive home from my friend’s house was like.

“Can’t buy me loooooo…”

bump.

WHACK.

“…oooooove! Everybody tells me so…”

bump.

WHACK.

“… Can’t buy me looooove! No no no, Nooooo…”

bump.

WHACK.

“…ooooooooooo!”

This was, quite literally, happening multiple times every minute. And as I ‘bump-WHACK’ed my way home, my hand was growing tired and the song was growing less enjoyable and I was growing irritable. And it was right about then, when I had reached the “pretty darn fed up with my speakers” stage, that I stopped at a stoplight—and my speakers went out. Again. I wound up, ready to slug that dashboard for all it was worth, when I happened to glance over to the car next to me.

Now, the nicely-dressed man sitting in the sports car next to me was not actually looking at me when I looked at him, but I swear I saw him glance away right when I turned my head.

And suddenly I realized what it must have been like to be driving next to this car for several miles, and to notice this crazy redheaded female inside striking her dashboard with her fist—Repeatedly. Over and over. (And possibly swearing at it as well.) That is probably about the time that you would think to yourself, “They should not have given that women permission to operate a moving vehicle.”

That thought was enough to make me slink a bit lower in my seat with blushing cheeks and not “adjust” my stereo anymore on the rest of the way home.

But the point remains, whether I am embarrassed about it or not, I need a more long-term solution for my speakers.

I’m thinking about purchasing a mallet.

Posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 11:53 pm.
Belongs with: Silly Things, Freaking Frustrating Things.
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