reduced and recycled

And she likes boybands.

I turned off the radio when I heard her litany of favourite boy bands, a litany which appeared to encompass almost all boybands in existence, with the possible exception of ‘Blue’. As she continued running off song titles, I suffered a sudden dissociation with reality; it felt as if I drove right through a wormhole, a time-warp of some kind.

I saw spinning colours. I saw hippie, hindu-inspired light-patterns. I slammed on my brakes, and swerved slightly, dodging an errant pothole.

I cursed Sammy Value under my breath and turned the radio on. Her accented speech was driving me to distraction; it sounded like a mixture of loud, Bahasa Indonesia and a mangled sort of English. Dear god, they were playing Simple Plan.

“You like this?” she asked, smiling at me.

“I hate American garage-rock, high-school crap,” I muttered and squinted at her. I promptly switched channels. New Order’s True Faith blared out and I was happy. She screwed her face up, shaking her head.

“You don’t like this?” I said; it was probably unnecessary. She shook her head.

“Is this 80’s?” she asked.

“Sort of. Before your time,” I said.

“I don’t like,” she said. I struggled between maintaining my sanity and accomodating her. I switched stations. We were pulling close to Taman Tun Aminah when the DJ decided to stop talking and play something. It wasn’t something she liked, yet again.

“So you don’t like dancey music, you don’t like old music, you don’t like– wait, you like pop music don’t you?” I asid.

“Yup,” she said cheerily.

“Wait, wait- you like the Top 40s?”

“Billboard?”

“Well, yes, whatever- you like billboard top 40’s sort of music don’t you?” I pressed.

“Yup, easy listening music,” she said, smiling.

“No, no- I mean, you like pop music, right?”

“No lah, I like any kind of music, depending on my mood,” she said.

“How come you don’t have preferences?” I asked, completely stumped.

“I have. Depending on my mood, lah,” she said.

“No, no- I mean- ah, nevermind,” I said, giving up. She wasn’t that cute after all.