Overheard at Booth 1

I was trying to find a radio station on the clock radio last night, some station that I could wake up to in the morning, y'know, and all I was getting was static and in between the static was all this hate radio

- hate radio?

yeah, like guys all talking about how the government's out to control our minds and how the health care is just them wanting to tell us what to do, and all sorts of spew . . . what's that word you like to use for "spew"?

- I dunno . . . vitriol?

yeah, that's it! Vitriol! but they we're laying it on, y'know, and I realized man I can't wake up to this ship, y'know, this would just put a ruinous start right at the top of my day, and then I realized I was on AM, so I switched to FM.

- any better?

I s'pose. FM was all in Mexican, but that was a lot better than some guy telling me how bad it is that Obama wants me to eat my broccoli.

- broccoli? For real?

yeah, man, for real, this guy had been saying, AND THE GOVERNMENT'S GONNA TELL YOU YOU CAN'T EAT FRIED FOODS! THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU YOU CAN'T EAT MCDONALDS! THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU YOU HAVE TO EAT YOUR BROCCOLI! and I was thinkin', man, why are these [EXPLETIVE DELETED] treating us like we're five year olds? I mean, only kids and people who still think like kids are gonna pick up on that and use it to fight the government.

- it's been working for them for over ten years now.

are we all really that much like stupid dweeby children?

- do you really need an answer to that?

No, I s'pose not . . .

- so . . . what'd you finally wake up to? What'd you set your alarm on?

I put in a Smithereens CD. Green Thoughts. Woke up to that.

- the classics: they never go out of style!