A disagreement at work concerning which radio station should be playing in our cafeteria.
This small but pushy saleswoman stubbornly promotes Top 40; that fat, lethargic engineer belches out an argument for classic rock; and there is even a sexagenarian accountant furtively holding out for what he calls 'country.'
The silent majority, however, would, I suspect, prefer to eat their lunch in total silence.
Personally, I vote for the news. Even the latest bulletins from Iraq and Wall Street cannot be as depressing as the obnoxious noise pollution offered by modern music: the lurid, staccato boasting of lady Gaga; the dull sludge of Pink Floyd; the pitifully torpid twang of whatever Stetson wearing charlatan you care to name. Even incessant Dow Jones stock report babble is preferable to such horrible sounds.
"What about NPR?" I suggest, and everybody nods acquiescently, since to be against NPR is to admit that you are probably stupid and unsophisticated. It is always the trump card in these situations. And so I return to whittling down my chicken giro while listening to a foreign affairs correspondent dissect the day's events in Blowupistan.
Anything to avoid conversation with my colleagues, especially the saleswoman, the engineer and the accountant.
