God on the Radio

I'm the sort of person who might believe in God, depending on what time of day you get me. I rarely blame him for my problems. Oddly though, I've noticed I usually give him a nod and a thanks for my good fortunes.

The other day I was sitting on my porch smoking a cigar. A beautiful girl that lives in the apartment above me walked down the steps by me and across the street. Her boyfriend lives there. She went inside, and I kept puffing on my Rocky Patel (I think that's what I was having). I couldn't help but notice that her boyfriend's blinds were open, as suddenly she appeared there in the window. Almost immediately she slid her pants down, bent over with her ass facing someone out of view, and started spanking herself. Her panties were bright blue boyshorts. I tilted my head to grey sky above Cortland and gave Him one firm nod of thanks.

Lots of these things seem to happen to me. I'll go to a bar which is in fact a shitty dance club, hating myself for paying the cover charge, only to find that I have been compensated. The bartender forgot the price of Guinness. She only charges me three dollars a pint. And I give Him credit, though I know in a cold scientific way that the ditz with the big tits behind the bar is probably stupid all the time, not just with me. (I'm sure she has a beautiful soul).

However, this playful relationship He seems to have taken with me takes, at times, a rather sinister tone. Recently my iPod stopped working. I know, they're supposed to be invincible. My Nano (dubbed El Naño) simply refuses to turn on. I have tried using the restart command by pressing two buttons simultaneously, I have plugged it into three different chargers, I have turned myself into a backlit silhouette dancing wildly out of rhythm, and none of it has worked.

You think God broke your iPod?

No. Not really. But because the fucking thing broke, I've had to listen to the radio when driving. In upstate New York this is practically a death sentence. Every Nickelback song is just as awful and clumsy as the last. The Fray squeels and rasps over their shitty pianos, mumbling noodlehead lyrics about noodlehead problems. Fergie thinks she can sing a ballad. This is music for people who do not like music, the way Titanic was a movie for people who do not like movies. Wildly successful, rarely worthwhile.

I drive three hours each way when I want to go home from school. The reach of these shitty radio stations seems to be about, I don't know, thirty five feet or so, because every five minutes I find myself scrambling to find a new station. I'll almost catch the tail end of a song I find tolerable when static prevails and I am forced to jam my finger into the scan button.

On the way home for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago I once again felt the presence of God having a laugh. Static filled my car as I yet again began my search for something to listen to, anything to keep me focused on the road (I get very stir crazy in cars). Suddenly, Everlong by Foo Fighters came on. Not a band I enjoy by any means, but somehow in the early nineties they managed to create a perfect song. It is easily one of my favorites. I couldn't believe my luck and turned the radio up.

Ah, I said, thank you. Five minutes of happiness.

And then the song ended. Immediately, another began: Black by Pearl Jam. Another perfect song. This is strange, I thought. Two good songs in a row? I hadn't heard a listenable tune in two hours, and suddenly, walled in on the right and the front by two tractor trailers, I was being handed a play list straight off my dead Naño. I stopped and really gave that some thought. A logging truck was directly in front of the nose of my car. A gigantic Freihoffer's vehicle all but filled the view out the right side of my tiny silver Saturn. And this is when it struck me that perhaps God was not laughing with me, but at me.

I'm about to fucking die. He's decided to take me now. The logs will come spilling from the behemoth before me. Entire tree trunks will bury themselves through the front glass of my windshield, crushing my skull, while the death machine to my right will swerve to avoid the fallen lumber. He's going to grind my car right into the guard rail and there won't even be dental records.

God is about to fucking kill me and as compensation he's decided to send me out with a good soundtrack. I step on the brakes and do everything I can to avoid the trucks. I silence the radio for the rest of the trip. I have begun operating under the assumption that He is a kid with an ant farm, and everything has become an omen.