Why I love audio books.

I recently figured out why I love audio books so much. About 11 years ago, I was talking to one of my neighbors who was going on about some new John Grisham audiobook she was listening to and I thought.. "What? Audio book? I'm not blind, why the hell would I listen to a book?". I read books. I used to read a lot. I like it!
Fast forward to 2002. I'm getting laser eye surgery. Apparently I'm gonna be legally blind for 2 or 3 days, and even then I'm not going to be able to really see anything for a week. I went to the local library and checked out a wack of books on CD. One of them was a Stephen King novel I hadn't had the chance to read yet. So, I'm there at home with my little blue pills an my Stevie Wonder glasses, lying in bed and I played these things all day, for about 3 days. They were GREAT! They get these great voice actors who actually ACT the book out for you. It rocked! It was pretty cool, a bit slower than reading the thing but equally entertaining. The next big solo car trip I went on, break out the audio books! I started listening to them on the drive to and from work and a funny thing happened. If I'd see a traffic jam, I'd get all excited! I'd maybe get through two chapters stuck in traffic instead of one!

Woohoo!

But I only realized this weekend after coming across a "scary" audio book why I feel such a sense of nostalgia when I listen to something like this. No it's not those old Disney 45 RPM records ("you'll know it's time to turn the page when Tinkerbell rings her little bell like this! - Dring!"). It was the country radio station CKBY, FM 105 or something, 11:00 PM on Monday nights. They would play old radio show horrors from the 60's until 11:30, usually two 15 minute ones. Sometimes a good 30 minute one. I would tune into these things every week on my new fangled clock radio because they'd creep me out! That's back when I used to share a room with my brother. He was always asleep before me, so it was never a problem.

If it was a particularly good one It'd keep me awake scared shitless until the wee hours of the morning and I'd go into school the next day like a zombie.

Ahh, those were the good old days.

Three cheers for audio books! Lately, I'd recommend any novels by Lee Child!