This Plinky-provided topic is apropos after my recent trip. Kinda.

I love listening to music when travelling and Moe and I both sing along to the radio or one of our CDs. I remember taking trips with my parents singing along to 8-tracks and tapes and, later on, with friends and we always sang along to our mixed-tapes, too. A road trip without tunes just doesn't feel right.

My car is very basic. Seriously, it has no extras at all. There's no stereo. No radio. No jack for an ipod or mp3... Even if I owned one of those. Moe and I tried using a portable CD player and I found it irritated me because I could only hear the treble portions over the sound of the engine. It really, really irritated me.

So... When I make a solo road trip, I have no music except what I have in my head. Singing alone in the car without external music isn't too bad, except I've discovered that most of the songs I thought I knew off by heart all have large chunks in the middle where the lyrics sound a lot like: "Nah, nah, la, be la mumble the blah, blah, neh-na!" Strange. I could have sworn there was more actual words last time I heard it on the CD.

Shrugging off the oddity of losing the lyrics of the songs I'm certain I have memorized, I have complied a short list of the fundamental tunes I would choose to hear while travelling. This is the starter list and these are only representatives of their types. They are all easy to sing along to and are mostly cheerful, if not in content, then in tone. And they each remind me of a past road trip that seemed to end too soon.

I am a smoker. Of tobacco; nothing illegal... Well, if I smoke inside a public building, restaurant or in a vehicle with children, I'll get fined. Or even near a public building, for that matter. I guess it's just a matter of time before smoking tobacco becomes illegal. But that's not my point...

With one parent who smoked, I have always been a smoker, if only passively. My first purchases at the corner store were made with the change from buying cigarette. In my teens, there were always cigarettes around to be pilfered, either for myself or for friends. By the time I lived away from that parent, I was already smoking on my own and, for the most part, supporting the habit with my own hard-earned dollars. Oh, the memories of the coughing and hacking that have greeted nearly every day of my life!

Cigarettes have been there for me through the good times and the bad times. Got dumped? Light up and try not to let the tears dampen it. Having a great day? Light up and enjoy the sunset. Never mind that you can't afford groceries; all is good as long as you can afford to hand-roll and coax a spark out of that dying lighter.

Without cigarettes, there'd be no reason to socialize with strangers. In between classes, on breaks at work, during parties, all the smokers eventually come together in a clump of good-fellowship and comaderie. Smokers are, in general, social creatures that will tolerate extreme weather and inconvenience just to support each other. What other group of people would go out into a raging snowstorm "just for the company"? Several long-time friendships have been forged over the glowing embers of a mutual habit. Non-smokers must be very lonely people, since I don't see how they ever meet new people.

Smoking is also a great test of a relationship. If a man can look beyond the yellowed teeth and fingers, the bad breath, and the ever-evocative smell of old ashtrays that clings to my hair and clothing, well he must really like me just for me! Yes, that one's a keeper.

Or he's just waiting for me to die of some horrible smoking-related illness so he can get my stuff... Hmmm...