Radio Haunting

My daughter’s car has lots of newfangled 😜 systems on board that took a minute, or five, to internalize. One was the radio. There were a number of preset stations (that I did not change or touch), and as I drove, I’d simply move (via a dial at my right hip) to the next preset station, knowing that something would show up to listen to. By the end of the first day, something odd was happening.

I like to listen to NPR for news. Usually individual NPR affiliates switch from music to news mid-afternoon. One of the preset stations happened/seemed to be a local NPR station. As soon as it got staticky, I switched to the next preset. It was also NPR, and so was the next, and the next, and the next.

The following morning, I wanted to listen to modern rock/pop/funk/country. The radio offered up my desire without changing the preset… This continued all day. Every time I switched to the next preset, the same sort of music showed up. At this point I decided that the car was smarter than I knew, or was reading my mind.

This happened for the entire 11 days. It got even goofier yesterday when I left my mother-in-law’s… The presets vanished, and the radio offered me every station, one after another, available on the FM band. I was able to reduce the selection to HD radio stations only, and continued home.

You’re thinking, as I did, that I was accidetly doing something to make this happen. As I dug into the radio controls on that last 35-minute drive home, I realized there was No Way I could have inadvertently made any of this happen.

When sharing all of this with my daughter today, she offered up that my mom was haunting the car! I replied that might be a little too woo-woo. She said, “No, I offered to help her buy a car, and didn’t. So, it’s perfectly fine if she’s haunting my car!” Mom was a huge music, and dedicated NPR fan. I’m kinda convinced that’s what’s going on!! Happy Halloween, Mama!! 💜