Going down on the old man with a transistor radio

by anna at 06:23 PM on October 11, 2004

In college I had a roommate named Steve. He took a fancy to a comely, eyelash-batting southern belle named Robin. He asked her out. We were all sitting at a table at the only bar in town. He's trying to talk to her over the din of some country-ass band. She's gazing lovingly into his eyes as if enraptured by his rap. She's also doing this flirty thing with her hand under the table. With me!

In my car this first words out of her mouth were, "Hold mah hair." You know those chicks who insist on calling themselves "womyn?" Honey, it's not one of those.

We dated for a while and then it petered out. She dropped out and moved in with some locals who lived up in the hills. Later I heard she'd gone back home to Charleston.

About a year later she returned to visit her girlfriends, who happened to be our neighbors. She stopped by to say hi, gave me a hug and whispered something I couldn't make out in my ear. Just then the phone rang. It's my dad, saying the insurance company had offered me $10,000 to settle a claim for an accident I'd been in three years back. He gets all argumentative, saying the lawyer thinks we're liable to score upwards of 100k. After all, my elbow was shattered, I had some nasty facial scars and I had the psychological trauma of having my friend die on my lap.

Anyway, he insists that I return home for a two day trial, leaving this Robin behind. The lawyer, who also happened to be the dead boy's dad, proved woefully inept in court. When the judge ruled that any mention of the death would result in a mistrial, Perry Mason sat there mute as a mime. The jury awarded me a measly $5,000 and payment of medical bills. From that I had to deduct attorney fees.

I did what any other 19 year old would do, bought the best stereo money could buy. A 100 watt per channel Onkyo amp/tuner, a high-tech Phillips turntable (look it up) and these huge Advent floor speakers.

Back at school I had an encounter with a jerk who'd been stalking me and my new gal. He showed up at my place all drunk and ostensibly apologetic. In a blind rage I grabbed the pressed-wood speaker grill and bashed him over the head. Then I pushed him out the door. That was the last I ever saw of him. He got offed in a drug heist gone awry that weekend. Although I was 300 miles away, the cops grilled me unmercifully. Worse still, my woofer, tweeter and midrange were now exposed.

Years later I still had the stereo in my home. Our dog chewed a hole in the woofer. I replaced it but the generic one never sounded quite the same. The speakers doubled as end tables. After we married my wife insisted I get rid of them. They were replaced by smaller bookshelf models that were deceptively labelled with the price for one speaker. Who buys one speaker? I was too embarassed to balk when I learned that my new Polk Audios cost $600.

When we moved into the new house we bought an entertainment center and a snazzy new flat-screen TV. It's so heavy one person can't carry it. I had trouble fitting the massive Onkyo into its slot so the amp sat there on the floor. My wife was trying to patch an unsightly hole I'd cut in the back of the entertainment center. She accidentally pushed the flat-screen onto my ancient, cherished amp.

On my way home from work I'd resolved to replace the relic. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that you could get twice the watts and less distortion for a pittance. I was also happy to learn that my DVD player will also play CDs. Thus I didn't have to replace my ancient one-disc CD player.

I bounced through the door with my new purchase under my arm. My wife's sitting there with this stunned, defeated look on her face. I ask what's wrong and she leads me downstairs. There lie the new TV screen-down on my Onkyo. We didn't know if it was ruined or not. Gingerly we lifted it up to find it was fine but for a couple scuffs. The amp didn't fare so well. It was crushed, a mangled mess of metal and shards of glass.

"So, what'd you buy this time," she asks.