Turn it off!

Do you ever long for a television/music-free environment? I certainly do. It seems I'm bombarded everywhere I go.

Wal-Mart has monitors selling the latest products at the checkouts and in the aisles. Recently, they had one of those jingles that drives you crazy playing over and over again. I almost abandoned my cart and left the store. The doctor's office has Jerry Springer type shows or CNN blasting away in the waiting room. My dentist even has a TV in the exam room. When the assistant hands me the remote, I turn it off. Gas up the car, and there's the TV at the gas pump inviting you into the store for a Big Gulp. Go to any restaurant and you can't digest your food comfortably for the noisy music flowing through the speakers. Hasn't anyone told these people that dinner music should be  pianissimo? An old fashioned malt shop is fine for some 1950's juke box music, but a sit-down restaurant with $15-$20 steaks on the menu is not the place for Jerry Lee Lewis and "Great Balls of Fire." And now, even the churches have monitors in the hallways blaring out announcements and contemporary music. If you don't read it in the bulletin, and you don't listen when they make the announcements from the pulpit, and you don't read the Power Point announcements on the big screen, then I think it's highly unlikely they'll catch your attention in the hallways.

I just want a little quiet. Turn it off!