David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Aug. 31, 2004

Thump thump thump driving you nuts? Blame the women

We've all been there. I'm sitting in my car at the forever-red stoplight when suddenly a low, thumping rumble begins to shake the earth. As the seconds tick by, my car shakes more and more as the rumble gets louder and louder, like an ominous presence preparing to introduce itself. The fillings in my teeth rattle, my children's eyes widen in fear, and my Diet Coke is vibrating so much that it's lost all carbonation.

One of two things is about to happen. Either a Tyrannosaurus Rex will burst through the foliage and have the Spates clan for dinner, or some kid will roll up in a car with five subwoofers blasting the latest Eminem ditty.

My money's on the kid with the stereo. You hardly ever see a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Tennessee these days.

We "mature" adults roll our eyes and wonder why in the world anyone would want to listen to music that bad. At volumes that high. With that much bass. And then we think back when we were young and stupid, too. We all did stupid things when we were young. We can admit that now, can't we? If you can't admit that you were at least a little stupid when you were young, I have bad news for you - you're still pretty stupid, but now you're old and stupid, and that's worse. If you didn't get the stupidness out of your system when you were young, like most of us did, that means you're still carrying it around with you now.

I like loud music as much as the next guy. If the kids are out of the car, I'll crank up some wild and crazy rock and bop down the street with a big grin on my face. It's not so loud that it vibrates the speedometer needles in the cars near mine like the stereo kid's music does, but it gets the job done. It gives me a little boost of energy, brightens my moment, and sends me on my way to whatever mundane task is on my to-do list.

I'm not talking about loud music. The stereo kid doesn't play loud music. He plays LOUD music. The stereo kid's music is so loud that it can, with prolonged exposure, reconfigure your DNA. The stereo kid wants to make sure that every living organism, the ones with ears at least, in a 400-foot radius of his tricked-out pickup hears his music. He's not packing 2,700 watts of stereo power so that he can hear Eminem, he's packing 2,700 watts so that we can hear Eminem. The stereo kid wants to be seen. He wants people to pay attention to him. He wants people to turn their heads to see what in the world all that noise is.

And do you know what? Ultimately, he's not to blame, but who do we pin this ridiculous behavior on?

Women. Women are to blame.

"Women?" you ask.

"Yes, women," I say.

These are old boys and young men -- if you're younger than 18, you're a boy, if you're 18 or older, you're a man, at least in the eyes of the law, and, well, that's good enough for me. Old boys and young men don't do much of anything unless they think some woman, any woman, will be impressed. If it's not going to catch the eye of a woman (or old girl, as the case may be), they usually won't bother. The next time you see an old boy or a young man doing something stupid, take pity on him. He's trying to make points with an old girl or a young woman, and cranking up his stereo to 11 is the best idea he has.

I feel for him. After all, I have a boy of my own. I'm a former boy myself.

But let's follow the train of logic here. The stereo kid cranks his stereo all the way up to 11. Why? Because he wants the attention of women. Why does he think a loud stereo will bring results? Obviously it has worked in the past. Old boys and young men aren't particularly inventive, so they stick with tested methods. Therefore, it stands to reason that LOUD stereos have attracted women, if not to the stereo kid himself, perhaps to an older brother, a friend, or a friend of a friend. Whomever he was and whomever she was is immaterial. The fact that they connected because he played his music at eye-vibrating volumes is the reason the rest of us are forced to endure the thump thump thump at redlights all over North America. No women, no thump thump thump.

So you see, women are to blame, but it's not all women who are attracted to the stereo kid's decibel output. In fact it's a very small percentage who react favorably to the thump thump thump, but when he's generating 2,700 watts of audio madness, a very small percentage is all the stereo kid needs.

For the stereo kid, it's a matter of percentages and wattage.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.