Nursing Home Blues....or Country

As I always do every morning, I was listening to NPR and all of the liberal-spun news broadcasting that it as to offer. I always love the snippets of music in between each of the segments of news, one of which happened to be some twangy, steel guitar, country clip.

It reminded me of an experience I had this week. For my job, I sometimes have to go to a local assisted living facility to assist clients with their financial business. I'm not always keen on going for several reasons: 1) it never seems to come at a very convenient time of the day for me (then again, NOTHING seems to ever be convenient for me when it comes to time during the day or night), 2) it's always ghastly warm in the facility and would be an ideal locale to raise rare tropical plants (how about the plantain?), and 3) it's not the most cheery place to spend a couple of hours during the day. Well, this week, I realized another reason why I'm not too keen on going: the muzak.

Now, you would probably think that the muzak that usually plays in a retirement facility would be the mellifluous melodies of Percy Faith, string versions of R&B tunes of Aretha Franklin, or in one particular experience of muzak, a lovely wind version of James' hit tune "Laid" (which I'm rather fond of in it's original form, but was a little creeped out that it would be an appropriate muzak selection for an assisted living facility). No. It was none of these. It was country music.

Country music is not my favorite music genre. But at one point during my visit, I could barely hear myself think. The volume level could be best compared to that of a cruise ship foghorn. As we age, I realize that sometimes our senses, "the big five," tend to retire like we do, and that hearing is one of the first to go on permanent vacation. I couldn't help, though, to wonder if it was really necessary to blast Kenny Chesney's proclamation about his tractor. And really, do any of the residents really think this tractor is sexy either? Most, if not all of these residents probably have never grown up agrarian given the financial resources one must possess in order to live in this particular facility.

In the unfortunate event that I would ever have to go to a place like this, it truly would be my own hell if I had to listen to country music at brain-piercing volume while I had my pablum and Geritol. With any luck at all, I would be graced with not having the wherewithal to even know what's going on. I don't know, but the thought of my experience this week is what nightmares are made of.