The Music Plays On and On and On
by Dana R. Leipold
People like to think that once you find your soul mate, everything else automatically works itself out. Most likely you will find that the love of your life starts doing things that are a little quirky. As time goes on, those little quirks become annoyances and later they become irritating until finally they are completely unbearable.
When I was dating my husband, we would often go to his apartment and listen to his music. He’s a music fanatic and collects it like someone would troll dolls. I think he has over ten million songs on his iTunes. He’s got everything from Barry Manilow and John Denver to Metallica and Disturbed and everything in between. It’s always bizarre to listen to “Sunshine” by John Denver and go to “10,000 Fists in the Air” by Disturbed in one click. I used to think he was so eclectic and worldly with his wide variety of musical tastes. It was part of his charm, until I lived with him.
Not only does my husband listen to some of the most annoying music on the planet, but he also has to have it blasting throughout the house, neighborhood, and city. We’ll be getting ready for dinner and he’ll put on “Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest on so loud, I can actually feel the singer breathing in between notes. I try to tell him to turn it down but he doesn’t hear me. I have to start acting out what I’m trying to communicate to him and he doesn’t understand. He just thinks I’m getting violently ill. Finally, I walk over to the stereo and turn it down and he’ll ask,
“What’d you do that for?” I try to calmly tell him that I’d like to enjoy my meal rather than get a week’s worth of heartburn. He’ll think I just don’t like the song he selected, which I don’t, but then he’ll put on something by Air Supply that makes me even more nauseous.
If that’s not bad enough, he’ll turn on the stereo in the living room, full blast of course, and then he’ll leave the room for hours. Usually, I’ll come in to the guitar solo or the loudest part of the song and look around for my husband. He’s not there, and neither is anyone else for that matter. I’ll finally find him outside mowing the law or organizing the garage and ask, “Why is the music on if you’re out here?” He’ll typically tell me that he was going to come back in after he finished whatever he was doing. Sometimes that could be an in-depth session of going through his old comic book collection, which could last for hours. Meanwhile, the music is blasting to an empty room. He’ll go into the garage to work out or do something with his tools and he’ll turn on the stereo out there, because he has to have music wherever he goes. Then he’ll come back into the house and watch TV. I’ll go to the laundry room to empty the dryer and hear weird noises coming from the garage and once again the music is playing for no one. Well, sometimes the cats go in the garage so from time-to-time they get traumatized by my husband’s blasting music.
My husband also has an iPod with almost every single song he owns on it. He’ll take it to bed so he can listen to music as he falls asleep. On several occasions I’ve had to remind him to turn the volume down because I can hear the singer screaming out lyrics like, “You bleep, come on and get down with the sickness!” I ask him how he can listen to thrash metal while he’s trying to fall asleep. He says it helps him calm his mind. I wonder, if that helps him calm his mind what the heck is he thinking about? A few times I’ve actually listened to his song selection on his iPod and could only stand it for two or maybe three songs. I mean, going from Eminem to Captain and Tennile to Kenny Rogers, and then Rage Against the Machine would make most people really pissed off, jubilant, and depressed all at the same time.
When we’re in the car, my husband has to have his beloved iPod. I’ve learned that I’m not allowed to play any music I like in the car because it’s too pedestrian and mainstream. He has to play some musical rock opera about Satan’s children or some drippy love song by a bleeding heart singer/song writer. What’s wrong with pedestrian and mainstream? At least it doesn’t give me a migraine or an upset stomach. The worst is when we’re on a road trip and we’re stuck in the car for hours listening to the whole album of a very bad space rock band’s interpretation of medieval science fiction. We’ll stop at a gas station then the children and I will run into the convenience store asking if we can have a hammer so we can use it to smash daddy’s iPod.
What once made my husband seem eclectic and worldly now drives me crazy. If I had known the full extent of his obsession with music, I probably would have found some way to accidentally catch his CD collection on fire while we were dating. I would still have married him though. He does have a few songs in his collection that I actually like, and when he plays them we’ll sometimes dance. Any man willing to dance with his wife in the living room to Duran Duran is definitely a keeper.
Dana Leipold is a freelance writer and in her spare time she enjoys writing humorous essays. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.. Contact Dana.
