My Addiction, My Downfall: NPR

A vision:

After hearing the 1,047th report* about the southern Montana lesbian tofu rancher’s hope for the future (brought about by President Obama), I will quietly turn off my public radio. I’ll rev the 6 cylinders of my Subaru Forester (28 mpg on the highway!) With a clear eye, I’ll stare down the hill, down that dark mountain road. The quiet of ten thousand trees will lean upon me. I know where the road goes: straight off a cliff.

As the trees move by, the roar, or rather chuckle, of my import car’s engine comes up past my depressed gas pedal, up to my addled brain, I steel myself for the silence, that terrible silence that comes after I blast through the guard rail and soar thousands of feet down to the river below. As I accelerate towards my demise, however, I’ll realize:

Snowden, you don’t have to die.

I’ll realize that just because NPR personalities and NPR fans act like they are the only thoughtful and informed people left in this theocratic lynch mob of a nation (“Gawd, Claire, only in America does something like Prop. 8 get passed. And that’s in California! Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen live there! Pass the pinot grigio, would you, dear? At least we have our raw foods to keep us company here in Chapel Hill!”) doesn’t mean they actually are thoughtful and informed.

Snowden, I’ll tell myself, there are millions of people out there who aren’t insufferable! There are people out there who aren’t merely enjoying the smell of their own farts and telling each other “Good For You!” Go find them! They’re just waiting for you, waiting to talk about current events without injecting their own awesomeness into every part of the conversation!

Faced with prospect of a brighter future, my foot’ll ease off the pedal. I’ll loosen my grip on the steering wheel. More sufferable days are on their way, I’ll tell myself.

But bad habits die hard. Without even thinking, my hand will wander to the radio, turn it on, and the damage is done:

…“Now we hear from NPR Senior Correspondent, Daniel Schorr, who has the next installation in his ongoing series "An Old Eye For a New World”, titled “Black Levied: How George W. Bush Tried To Kill All Black People in New Orleans With The Help Of His Friend And Heretofore Unknown Mentor Rep. Joseph McCarthy.” Daniel?…

AAARGH!!

My Subaru chuckles louder. The void, the blissfully NPR-free void awaits.

FIN.

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*It might be the 1046th. I can’t be sure.