My NPR Dilemma

If you're white and drive a Volvo then, like me, you know that NPR is doing its fund-drive thing. This is always a difficult time white Volvo drivers. The temptation, normally, is to switch over to another radio station during this unfortunate period-- however, the other radio stations to which I tune in are also public in nature and are also doing their fund-drive thing at the present moment.

Bad planning, if you ask me. Or, maybe it's just a concerted, coordinated effort to back our asses into a corner and get us to open our wallets.

Or maybe I'm just an insufferable conspiracy theorist.

Or maybe you're out to get me.

In restaurants, I invariably choose the seat with my back against the wall.

Anyway, NPR is begging for money, to pay for its programming, to keep procuring new journalistic talent with funny sounding, vaguely ethnic names, to send reporters to far off, foreign lands, to pay for Carl Kasell's new set of button-down shirts, to buy $2.00 ceramic mugs that they then turn around and "give" to us for a $120 pledge. They have expenses, and I respect that. I listen to NPR, and I don't give them a single penny, and am, therefore, a thief. I readily confess that I habitually steal from the cookie jar that is public radio. And there have been times this week where I have been tempted, dare I say moved to pick up the phone and call to give my pledge to my local NPR affiliate, to put my money where my mouth is, to put in my contribution to support public broadcasting that I love so much and that contributes regularly to my very justified feeling of moral and intellectual superiority. Yes, there are times when I very much feel the urge to donate to public radio.

But then I usually just end up masturbating.

And there you have it. Thank you very much for listening to my NPR dilemma. And now, back to "This American Life" with Ira Glass.