Ticked off

I'm guessing most people have things in their past that, in retrospect, are inexplicable and perhaps embarrassing but ultimately harmless. For me, one of those things was a country-and-western phase in high school. It wasn't enough to listen to the music; I also chewed tobacco and even owned cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. To this day I'm still not sure how or why that happened to a kid living in a very un-country suburb of San Diego where surfers and athletes prevailed, and I probably never will. (And at least I finally quit chewing tobacco...10 years later.)

I'm occasionally reminded of those days when I'm flipping radio stations in the car, because Gretchen insists on having a country station as one of the pre-sets. In the past few weeks I've stumbled across a couple of songs that embody all that's funny and absurd about double entendres in country music. First, I heard a guy singing about how seeing a woman take a drink makes him wish he was her beer...which roped me in just long enough to hear him sing that he'd like to check her for ticks. (Further research revealed that the song is actually called "Ticks".) Really, is there any other musical form where declaring your desire to check someone for ticks would be acceptable? (Although who knows...maybe Gretchen would have found that very romantic when we first started dating.)

Then I heard someone sing about how tequila makes her clothes fall off, with perhaps my favorite line being "Them panty hose ain't gonna last too long / If the DJ puts Bon Jovi on" (which I think I enjoyed in part because while much of my high school time was spent in cowboy boots, Gretchen was similarly listening to bad '80s hair bands).

I may just have to start pausing more frequently on the country station during my forays around the FM band just to see what other gems I might have been missing...