Thrilling And/Or Appalling Confession #5

I just received some truly terrifying news about my dad. Not about his leg – this time it’s his heart. There are only two ways this situation can go, and it’s hard to be hopeful when both options are equally scary. We won’t have an official prognosis until tomorrow, so I’ll have fun sleeping thinking about that tonight.

I actually do have fun things to tell you (including HIGH FIVING MATES OF STATE), so I figured I would just throw the bad news out there and then bury it with happier stuff. I wish I could do that in real life. It can’t hurt to try, I suppose. Anyway…

Today’s TA/OA Confession is in honor of my dad. He is super SUPER Republican. He stays at home all day because of his vision and he LOVES listening to Conservative talk radio.

He has a radio in the kitchen, the den and his bathroom. During lunch he turns them all on so he can listen to the radio wherever he is. Also? He is kind of deaf so they’re all turned up pretty high.

I lived in the basement through college and grad school, so if I was working on a paper, eating lunch or doing my laundry, my ears would be bombarded with Conservative talk radio the second I stepped upstairs. There is really no escaping it unless you have some Jimi Hendrix on-hand.

Eventually I learned to tune the radio out. It became white noise (even more than it already is, if you know what I mean). I stopped listening to what they were saying and just tolerated the tone of their voices. It blended in with the creaks in the floor, moans in the pipes and the smells in the air. Like the sound of the train I currently hear every day, it became something I connected with Being At Home. More importantly, that’s how I know my dad is there.

TA/OA Confession #7: I am comforted (and possibly even soothed) by the sound of Rush Limbaugh’s voice.