Unplugged

Funny observation…

Everywhere I go, people are plugged into something.

AirPods. Earbuds. Noise-canceling headphones. The giant over-the-ear ones that make you look like an air traffic controller. Every now and then there’s the brave soul carrying a Bluetooth speaker, generously sharing their playlist with everyone within a fifty-foot radius, whether we asked for it or not.

It doesn’t seem to matter if they’re walking through a grocery store, pumping gas, or taking the dog for a walk. Everyone has a soundtrack playing somewhere between their ears.

Me?

I just sing.

No headphones. No earbuds. No carefully curated playlist. Just me and the open air.

Walking through a parking lot, I’ll catch myself harmonizing with absolutely nothing. Wandering the aisles of the hardware store? Chances are there’s a little Vicente Fernández, Sinatra, or some random song that escaped my memory thirty years ago and decided today was the day to come back. I’ll whistle while waiting in line. I’ll hum walking into work. If a melody pops into my head, out it comes.

I imagine I must look like a glitch in the simulation. Everyone else is listening to music. I’m manufacturing it. People probably see me coming and think, “Poor guy… somebody should buy him a pair of earbuds.”

Nope.

I am the earbuds.

The funny part is, I don’t even notice I’m doing it most of the time. Music just leaks out. Like steam from a kettle that doesn’t know it’s boiling. Sometimes it’s a full song. Sometimes it’s just a chorus. Sometimes it’s a tune I haven’t heard in decades that suddenly decides to introduce itself again.

I wonder if it’s because I grew up in a different kind of world. Back then, silence wasn’t something we rushed to fill. You heard the world because there wasn’t much else competing with it. The screen door slapped shut behind you.

Sprinklers clicked across front lawns.

A lawn mower droned somewhere three streets over.

An ice cream truck announced itself long before you ever saw it.

Dogs barked. Birds argued in the trees. Wind drifted through the leaves with that soft rushing sound that somehow made a summer afternoon feel even warmer.

And if there was music, it came from somebody.

A dad washing his truck while singing louder than the garden hose.

A mother humming in the kitchen without realizing she was doing it.

Someone whistling while sweeping the sidewalk.

Kids inventing songs with absolutely no concern for staying on key.

Nobody thought twice about it. We were the playlist.

Sure, there was always a radio playing somewhere. Through the open window of a house. In the garage while someone tinkered on an old Chevy. Over the speakers at the grocery store. A teenager tinkering with his bike with a transistor radio nearby. A passing car with the windows down. Heck, even elevators had music.

That was normal. But the music still felt connected to the world around you.

Now we’ve become curators of endless libraries. Millions of songs available instantly, yet somehow we spend half our time deciding what to listen to. We’ve mastered carrying music with us. Then we tuck a pair of earbuds into our ears and keep it all to ourselves; quietly disappearing into our own little worlds. 

I’ve just never stopped carrying it inside me.

Meanwhile, I’m over here providing free concerts to absolutely no one. My audience consists of confused shoppers, passing cars, a few amused cashiers, and the occasional pigeon that refuses to applaud.

I wouldn’t be surprised if people crossed the street thinking, “There goes that singing guy again.”

Honestly, they’re not wrong. But every now and then I catch someone smiling.

Maybe they remember doing the same thing when they were younger. Maybe a lyric catches them by surprise. Maybe, for just a second, they pull out one earbud and let the real world back in.

Then I keep walking. Still singing.

Because before playlists, before Bluetooth, before algorithms figured out what song we should hear next, sometimes the music just came from whoever happened to be walking down the street.

Maybe that’s not old-fashioned. Maybe it’s just remembering that before we carried our soundtracks in our pockets, we carried them in ourselves.

I suppose that’s what happens when music stops being something you listen to and becomes part of who you are. Maybe that’s just me. It’s simply part of who I am. And honestly… I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But every once in a while, as I’m wandering through a store serenading absolutely nobody in particular, I half expect someone to walk up, drop a dollar in my hand, smile, and say,

“Can you do one by Pedro Infante?”

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