Today is an absolutely beautiful day outside. It’s a one of those devious late winter days that gives you a precious, bittersweet taste of Spring. The kind of day that makes me want to find a long scenic back road, crack the windows, slap in a favorite CD, throw the pedal down, and put some distance between my thawing bones and the icy grip of February.

However, I only get a half hour for lunch, so I opted to swing into Fast Freddies Gas ‘n Convenience to clean out my car. I pull into an empty spot next to one of the colossal vacuum cleaners and start digging through the thick sediment of crap that has collected on every interior surface over the past few months. I leave the key in the on position and put on a CD mix I made the other day with a bunch of Black Flag, Misfits, and Minor Threat on it—sometimes I think I could very happily go the rest of my days listening to only these three bands—to help ease the task.

I’m half way through separating candy-wrappers from CD cases when another patron pulls into the spot on the other side of the vacuum. I’m leaning inside the car, rocking out to “20 Eyes” and “My War” and such. I gather up a handful of trash and turn toward the can. Once outside my car I’m audibly assaulted by yet another blaring, sing-along rendition of “Sweet Child of Mine”. This time it’s a guy with twice as much enthusiasm and volume as the crooner in the previous post. I mean, he’s really seriously trying to capture Axl’s snarly twang, totally unfazed by the tone-deaf-goat-like sounds spewing forth.

Like I said, it is a beautiful day so this kind of thing is more acceptable than usual, whatever makes you happy and all, but I quickly dump my quarters into the vacuum and duck back into my car to drown out the screeching.