Coop Convos: The Radio

I drive an old truck. “Old” is a relative term, I guess, so to be specific, I drive a 2008 Dodge Ram. It’s beat up and the paint is faded and the AC takes longer than I’d like to get running in the Texas Summers. But it gets me where I’m going and it’s paid off and so, I drive an old truck. 

My truck’s radio doesn’t have a USB port and of course bluetooth is out of the question. I could get a new radio or a bluetooth adapter but to be honest, I mostly just drive the truck to work and back or short errands and the AUX cord works fine for these purposes. But because it requires me to plug the AUX into my phone and switch over to the appropriate source[1] and because most of my drives are somewhere between five and seven minutes and because Apple changed their phone design so that you can’t plug in both an AUX cord and a lightning charger without a dongle, when I hop in the truck, I have to decide whether I want to take the time to plug in my phone and listen to a podcast or audiobook or Spotify or just let it ride with the radio. And more often than not, I just let the radio play. I love the radio, or at least I have nostalgia for the radio, and so this action doesn’t bother me all that much even though commercials are dumb and I don’t get most Radio Songs anymore and the sports talk is inevitably more Cowboys-intensive than I might like. 

Last week, Cooper and I hopped in the truck to take our daily trip to Target.[2] We were going a little farther out than normal so I plugged in the AUX and asked Coop if he wanted to pick the music. Now, I won’t lie and tell you my seven-year-old has an incredibly advanced taste in music; I didn’t expect him to request Uncle Tupelo or some early Outkast or “REM but B-sides only”. When I ask him for a musical choice, I’m tossing a coin between a Disney playlist or his favorite bands: the Foo Fighters and the Beastie Boys. I’m pretty sure he mostly likes these bands because he thinks the names are funny but he is actually pretty decent at identifying the Foos or the Beasties whenever they pop up in the car.[3] On this day, however, he threw me a curveball. Herein follows our conversation. 

Me: What music do you want to listen to?
Cooper (a little tired): I don’t know. 
Me: You want me to choose?[4]
Cooper: Just put on that podcast. 

*NOTE* This is a reasonable request. I listen to a lot of podcasts and have two podcasts of my own and he’s even been the guest of honor on a couple episodes. So, “Just put on a podcast” wouldn’t be weird, it’s the “the podcast” part that threw me off. 

Me: Which podcast?
Cooper: The one you always listen to.
Me: *racking my brain for “the” podcast I always listen to* I’m not sure which one you mean.
Cooper (a little exasperatedly): You knowwww. The one we always listen to in the truck.
Me: What’s it about?
Cooper: I don’t know, sometimes they talk about sports. 
Me: You mean The Ticket?
Cooper: I don’t know, maybe. 
Me: *hits the appropriate radio button for The Ticket* Is this it?
Cooper: *listens for a second* Yeah, I guess. Sometimes they talk about sports and sometimes they talk about movies and sometimes they play songs and sometimes they go back and forth.
Me: Like this? *clicks another radio button for a music station*
Cooper (extremely disinterested): Yeah, like that and then they play other kinds of songs sometimes and then they talk more.
Me: Like this? *clicks another button* And this? *clicks another button*
Cooper: Yeah, this podcast. The one we always listen to. 

 So. For at least the last few years, my son thought that my truck was receiving an incredibly eclectic podcast that lasted (in theory) all day long and which jumped back and forth between

[1] An action that would take approximately 0.00001 seconds.
[2] Because that’s, like, the only out-of-house-entertainment we have in Quarantinetopia.
[3] I am careful in which songs I let him hear so please save your call to CPS for another time, I’m sure I’ll deserve it later.
[4] Knowing we’re about to listen to the new T-Swift album for the 500th time.