Traveling Karaoke

My car isn’t old, but it is aging. It’s so old, in fact, that when I was 15 it became the first car I ever drove. 13 years later it feels like an extension of me. Because of its age, it lacks all those fancy things that new cars have that allow you to plug an iPod into the car speakers. To remedy this, I have a magic cassette tape with a cord. I put the tape in the tape deck, plug the cord into my iPod, and music magically plays through the speakers. It’s worked well for the last seven years – until last week,

I was driving home from work listening to a podcast and suddenly I couldn’t hear anything. I grabbed my iPod and the sound cut in and out so fast it sounded like a telegraph. When I wiggled the jack in the iPod the sound would sometimes play clearly and sometimes it wouldn’t. It was frustrating so I put my iPod away and listened to talk radio for the rest of the drive home.

A few days later I plugged my iPod in again hoping that the problem had magically fixed itself (as electronic problems sometimes do). This time instead of playing a podcast I played a song. My hopes soared as music started playing loud and clear. It really had magically fixed itself. However, when the singing was supposed to start the music continued, but I heard no words. I tried some other songs and the same thing happened – music, but no vocals (except for backup vocals). For some reason my magic tape no longer plays the vocals from my iPod (which makes podcasts much less exciting).

Like most people, I enjoy singing along to songs while I drive. The odd malfunction of my magic tape has turned my car into a traveling karaoke booth. I don’t consider myself to be a good singer so I've never cared for karaoke. To like karaoke you either have to be fairly good at singing or Asian and I am neither of those. But solo karaoke in my car is actually pretty fun. Sometimes I don’t know the lyrics very well and I just mumble a little, but no one else can hear so I don’t care. So if you’re up for some traveling karaoke, feel free to ride along with me in my car. I don’t have the lyrics to the songs available, but you can sing along if you know the words. I have all the good Disney songs and yes, I know all words.