Is it me, or is music in public — stores, restaurants, coffee shops — getting louder?
I realize I'm getting older because my family keeps telling me, but I was surprised to learn I've become "Turn the radio down to find a parking spot" old.
Last year, I turned "Why does a clothing store need to blast music?" years old. And five years ago, I reached, "Can you please turn that down? I just want to eat in peace."
The problem isn't that I'm getting older. It's that people are getting more obnoxious about playing music in public. Business owners and managers don't care about their customers, let alone their own hearing. They can't hear customers complain because they blast their store stereos like they're the reincarnation of Studio 54 and not a run-of-the-mill clothing store at a dying third-rate mall.
It's actually worse than when I was in college. Twenty years ago, in the mid-1980s — I said what I said! — my fraternity held parties where the speakers were so massive, their output was measured on the Richter scale. It was a veritable earthquake of sound.
If you ever wanted to have a meaningful conversation with someone, you'd put your mouth up to their ear and shout at the top of your lungs, which made picking someone up rather difficult.
"MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE," you'd shout.
It wasn't really mumbling; that's just what it sounds like when you're within 100 yards of Bobsled Steve's concert-sized amps, and he can't fight that REO Speedwagon feeling.
"WHAT?" she would shout back.
"I SAID, YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL EYES!"
"OH! PSYCHOLOGY, WITH A MARKETING MINOR!"
As the evening progressed, and you learned more about each other — or at least just smiled and nodded without actually hearing a word you said — you'd get a little bolder.
"MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE!"
"WHAT?"
At that instant, the stereo blew a fuse, and there was a piercing silence.
"I SAID, DO YOU WANT TO COME BACK TO MY PLACE?"
As Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And if you were me in college, you missed 100% of the shots you did take. And everyone just saw you take a puck to the face.
Back then, we only played music at brain-bleed volumes on the weekends. Not like today when it's the middle of the day, and you just want to have a quiet chat with a friend over coffee, but the staff is fire-hosing Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album to set a Guinness record for World's Loudest Noise.
I was at a coffee shop for a meeting this week, and we had to ask them to turn the music down so we could hear each other across a small table. It was three in the afternoon in suburban Orlando, not at a KISS concert at Madison Square Garden.
It doesn't matter if the volume matches the purpose of the place. The staff's goal is to be as off-putting and disruptive as possible in order to make it as unpleasant for as many people as possible.
I was at lunch today with a friend at one of my favorite local restaurants. They have a cool hipster vibe, and they're busy enough to have a steady flow of traffic the entire day. Part of that vibe is to overpower its clientele with post-punk music from 20 years ago in an effort to make conversation all but impossible.
"I SAID, CAN YOU HAND ME A NAPKIN?"
Imagine it's lunchtime, and the people who typically come in are friends getting together for a nice meal. Or a few people from a nearby business who want to have a non-work conversation with colleagues and get to know them a little better.
Now, imagine someone working behind the counter looks out at the roomful of people and thinks, "I hate that everyone here came to have a good time." So they crank Panic! At The Disco up to 11 and smile like Elon Musk watching orphans fight over half a sandwich.
That's what lunch was like.
The only time my friend could hear me was between songs, and even then, I had a few seconds to say anything meaningful.
"THE PASSWORD IS GREATBIGBOY1986!"
I started taking advantage of the bursts of silence and said things to draw stares from other people.
"BUT THEY NEVER FOUND THE BODY!"
"ANYWAY, THAT'S WHERE I BURIED THE TREASURE!"
"THE DOCTOR SAID SHE'D NEVER SEEN A RASH QUITE LIKE IT!"
We need to take a stand against the sonic mistreatment that restaurants and coffee shops commit when their customers just want a little quiet. We need to tell them to turn it down or turn us away. To value their customers more than their audio assault. Here's what we should do:
Whenever you're at a checkout counter, and the music is really loud, speak very quietly to the cashier. They'll ask you to repeat themselves, and you say, "What?"
"I can't hear you," they'll say much louder.
"Huh?"
"Can you repeat that?" they'll shout. "I can't hear you over the music."
"OH! PSYCHOLOGY, WITH A MARKETING MINOR!"
Photo credit: Wok (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 2.0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.