Last summer, when we moved into this house, west of St. Louis, my folks finally got me to drag the last of my stored crap out of the family cottage and into my fresh empty basement.

Last week, I finally got to one old briefcase that had in it:

– An assortment of pens, markers and scratch-pad paper

– Some dead double-A batteries

– A pile of old cassette tapes.

All those tapes were the ones that somehow made it back from NYC when I moved back to Chicago in 99, but never quite made it to the car tape deck rotation.  And so they didn’t get tossed when I added a CD player to my car.

Strangely, the car I am driving now is a ’98 Volvo, and has both the CD cartridge that loads in the trunk.

And a tape deck.

For a long while, the only tape I had in the car was some crackly-ass “Who’s Greatest Hits” — though luckily the section of tape “Substitute” was clear, and I’ve listened to that fine single about a thousand times recently.

Now, however, I have a Dierberg’s plastic bag stuffed with the tapes I actually felt like keeping.

Monday morning, I blindly grabbed a tape out of the bag, stuffed it into the tape deck

DELIGHT / HORROR  !!!

You understand, yes?