The Day Dan Picked the Music

My husband, Dan, and I just keep getting older. In fact, Dan celebrated a birthday last weekend. It seems like the birthdays keep coming quicker and quicker as we keep getting older. I suppose that's how it works.

To celebrate Dan's birthday this year, we spent the weekend in Sun Valley. A trip to Sun Valley is plenty exciting in itself. But the real fun occurred on the drive up and back.

That's when Dan got to pick the music.

Usually, I create a "Road Trip Playlist" from the Becky-approved music on my iPod. But since it was his birthday, I permitted Dan to use his iPod and listen to whatever he wanted, even if it meant random bouts of ear-bleeding by the end of our trip.

Dan's taste isn't terrible. We just differ in our beliefs as to how much screaming versus melodic line should be used in music.

We left on Record Store Day, which seemed appropriate. Dan explained that he had put together a two-part playlist. "Dan's Birthday Radio" consisted of a bunch of singles handpicked by the birthday boy. The second part of the of the playlist included full albums that "Becky usually doesn't listen to."

I was pleasantly surprised when "Rapture" started playing.

''You picked good songs," I said. "I thought you'd just choose [this is where I did my best screaming impression], 'rah, rah, rah, rah.'"

Dan smiled.

"Oh. Is that coming later?"

A few miles down the road, Dan turned to me with a twinkle in his eye. (Yes, it's the first time I've seen Dan's eye twinkle too.)

"Have you figured out my playlist pattern?" he asked.

"Is it boy singer, girl singer, hip hop?"

"I think you'll like the hip hop I chose."

"Because you didn't choose a bunch of misogynist crap."

Toward the end of "Dan's Birthday Radio," he began to second guess himself.

"Maybe I should have made the whole thing a singles playlist. I can sneak in one or two songs you don't like but not a whole album."

"It doesn't matter if I like it," I said. "It's your birthday."

"It matters when you go, 'bleck . . .'"

(He's right. I do say that when I don't like something. It's the same noise I make when Republicans do stupid things too.)

When we reached part two of the playlist, Dan quizzed me every time a new album began.

"Do you know who this is?" or "Who do you think this is?" and "What made you think that?"

He also spent a lot of time trying to convince me of Slipknot's virtues. He was quite concerned about opening my mind to the world of heavy metal.

"I used to think they were gimmicky with those dumb masks, but I really listened to this album, and it's good," he said and waited for me to respond.

I said nothing.

"Don't you think . . . ?"

I still said nothing.

Then a Slayer song came on, something about blood raining from the sky, and I started laughing.

"Do you at least like Slipknot better?" he asked.

Nothing.

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