Mailbag

Leta's thoughts on popular music:

So this guy at work had these CD's that he had put a bunch of songs from his MP3 player on and he let me copy them onto my computer. There's just over 700 songs in the file. I used to just listen to the songs I like, but I decided that I was going to make a project of listening to all the songs in order while I work. I have to listen to EVERY song and am not allowed to skip over or fast forward any songs. Some of the songs are good, some are bad, and some I don't know. It actually makes work more interesting and sometimes quite comical. For instance, I've been out at a taxpayer's all week. After flipping invoices for two days straight, I was bored out of my mind and thought things couldn't possibly get any worse. But no, I was wrong. Celine Dion's "My heart will go on" comes on and this makes things MUCH worse. I was thinking about it, and is there really any situation in which Celine Dion's music wouldn't make things worse?

The correct answer, Leta, is: No, there is absolutely NO situation in which Celine Dion's music would not make things worse. It is only good as a distraction from something equally bad, like when a person bites their hand to distract themselves from the pain of a toe that has been just run over by a car or something like that. So maybe if you're getting root canal and the oral surgeon has run out of anesthetic, it might be appropriate to listen to Celine Dion's music to take your mind off the searing pain in your mouth and direct it to the searing pain in your ears.