I feel weird turning off the radio mid-song-phrase.

I know she’ll never be able to tell I cut her off in the middle of a sentence, because this is a studio recording being played through Spotify and I’m a nobody, but still. It feels vaguely unsatisfying. Almost disrespectful? Sorry Kat, I can’t wait for you to finish your thought, I’ve got better things to do. Rude.

Ideally I’d love for her to finish her song. She has such a sweet and understated vintage pop voice that I want to spend a full three minutes luxuriating in her couplets, listening to her sing I wanna be romanced like an old fashioned / Old fashioned gal through the car speakers while the engine idles.

But I know that even if I shut down the engine, it still drains the car battery. How much of it really depends on where she is in the song when I reach my parking space. So maybe I’ll let Kat finish a verse, I’ll give her the space for that, and she can pick up once we get to my living room. I think that’s a nice compromise. Don’t you?

But then if I have passengers to ferry around, ooh, the calculus is a bit different. I’m a bit too respectful of my friends’ time to ask, “So, can we please just spend another minute in this car while Kat finishes her song?” Maybe I can linger until the end of a phrase before I yank the car keys out of ignition, but plausible deniability stops there. And so does Kat.

I’m sorry! I hope you’ll understand.