Suburban Dad Manifesto: Amendment 1

You may recall the time I set forth unto this country my demands for any and every new car. Well, now my righteous anger has been ignited by experiences in a couple new cars, although they are by no means the only offenders.

Here’s the rub: When I’m listening to the radio, newer radios tell users which station, band and song they’re listening to — or at least they’re supposed to. In both the Ford Edge and the Volvo S80, the radio display did what a lot of these displays do: They chopped the names of the band and/or the song into little, indecipherable bits that make it very hard to figure out who’s playing, and what it is they’re playing.

For example, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas was playing. This seems simple, and should be able to be seen in three simple lines: Kansas/Dust in/the Wind (or, as these displays inevitably do it, in all caps for easier reading: KANSAS/DUST IN/THE WIND). There. Easy.

In reality, of course, it’s not so easy. Honest-to-god, this is how the Edge displayed it: KANSAS D/UST IN/THE WIND. You gotta be kidding me.

And this is only with a short title. There have been some songs that I’ve had to watch the letters rotate around five or six times before I was able to figure them out.

The other annoying thing? This one could be the fault of either the car’s radio or the local radio station, but what happens is that the name of the song being played stays the same, no matter how days and miles I put on the car. One car I drove recently told me I was listening to “ALL I WANNA DO/SH” for four straight days. Arrgh.

My manifesto demands a radio that uses a small enough type size to display the full name of the band on one line (within reason, of course), and show me the title of the song in no more than two lines. No awkward breaks, no run-on words and no mangling the song title with the name of the band.

Is that too much to ask?