Shower radio

Four the fourth week in a row, I’m having a shower radio crisis.

Okay, I understand it’s a cheap shower radio. Like all shower radios, you can shake it and hear a small screw rattling around in it. It’s got a rounded bottom so you can’t actually stand it up on any surface. The tuning consists of a small dial with two settings: 530 and 1620. It takes all day to get the thing tuned to 1050 – all I know is that it’s somewhere between 530 and 1620. I hit the strongest station, 880, then go slooooowly to the next strong one, 1010. Then I have to do little microturns until I find the slight increase in static that indicates the advanced microcircuitry has locked onto 1050.

And then what happens? The “cleaning” “girl” shows up and retunes it. (“Cleaning” is in quotes because her routine consists of spraying Pet Formula Febreze on the carpets, putting a few drops of blue food coloring in the toilet, and disappearing with a Diet Sprite.) She goes into the bathroom with the bottle of blue dye, flicks the shower radio over to FM, and finds Snooze 106. The next morning, I turn the radio on and it’s giving me the opportunity to win tickets to see Tori Amos at Jones Beach. I just want to know whether I need to wear a bright yellow rain slicker in the morning; I don’t need the latest Ben Affleck news.

Oh, and the train station smells worse than San Francisco this morning. I’m beginning to think that the under-track tunnel actually secretes its own stale urine. Or maybe it’s on an ancient bat burial ground.