My local NPR station has been begging for donations lately for my entire half-hour drive to work, which itself is aggravating. Far more aggravating is having my normally intellectually stimulating radio programs replaced by smart people talking about the benefits of NPR with the sound of totally fake ringing phones with old school mechanical bells in the background. The aggravation is even further inflamed by the fact that each bell ring sounds different.

Seriously, who even has phones with clackity sounding bells anymore? What kind of call center searches for, and installs phones with different sounding bells, let alone bells at all? Those NPR geeks are scouring thrift stores and trendy retro shops spending their donation money on swanky retro phones, some of them probably pumpkin orange in color!

And this is where it all hits me like a brick in the head – I’m listening to an old folks station, where clackity bells actually mean something, and are dubbed in over the unsuspecting smart people talking intelligently about why donations to NPR are stupendous and soul saving. They’re there for the old people who love listening to flowers grow over the radio, and then love donating piles of money so that the sound of vigorous flower growth can be heard on the air.

So I sent them $5.00.