The Volume Situation in Your Car Is Getting Completely Out of Hand

There is a version of you that exists only in your car. This version of you has no inhibitions, extremely strong opinions about the bridge section of a song you've heard four hundred times, and an apparent need to experience music at a volume that suggests you are trying to communicate with a neighboring county.

The moment you pull out of the parking lot alone, something shifts. The music gets louder. Then a little louder. Then you are doing something with your hands that could generously be described as conducting. Nobody warned you this would become your whole thing.

It Starts Innocently

When other people are in the car, you are a reasonable person. Volume around fifteen. Maybe eighteen if it's a road trip and everyone's in a good mood. You make polite conversation. You share the aux cord. You do not perform.

But the second those doors close and you are alone — genuinely, verifiably alone — a different set of rules applies.

It usually begins with a song you like coming on shuffle. Fine. Normal. You turn it up a little because you're by yourself and you can. Volume twenty-two. Perfectly reasonable. You're just enjoying some music on your commute like a well-adjusted adult.

And then the chorus hits, and you turn it up again. Volume twenty-seven. Still fine. This is what the speakers are for.

And then somehow, without any conscious decision being made, you are at volume thirty-eight and you are singing a part of the song that is not the vocals. You are singing the guitar. You have opinions about the guitar part. You are expressing those opinions at full volume in a moving vehicle on the I-90.

The Escalation Is Always Gradual

The thing about solo car audio is that it escalates slowly enough that you never notice it happening. You don't decide to crank the volume to concert levels. You just make a series of small, reasonable adjustments that compound over twenty minutes until you are technically at a noise level that would require hearing protection at a worksite.

The song changes and you don't turn it down. Why would you? You're comfortable here. This is your space. The next song also deserves this volume. Possibly more volume. Is there more volume? There is. You find it.

At some point you switch from singing to what can only be called feeling the music physically. The steering wheel becomes a drum kit. The dashboard gets a few taps. You do a shoulder thing that you would never, under any circumstances, do in front of another human being.

You are having the time of your life. This is, genuinely, the best you've felt all week.

Red Lights Are a Threat to National Security

Then you hit a red light.

And you remember the world exists.

The car next to you is right there. Just... right there. A person is in it. A regular person, living their regular life, who can currently see you doing whatever it is you were just doing with your face during that key change.

You go completely still. You look straight ahead. You do not touch the volume. Touching the volume would be an admission. You stare at the traffic light with the focused calm of someone who was definitely just sitting here quietly the whole time.

The light turns green. The other car goes one direction, you go another. You are free.

The volume goes back up before you've finished merging.

The Return to Civilization

The real psychological event horizon is pulling into a parking lot at your destination. You've been at volume forty-one for the last eight minutes. You are mid-song. The song has not reached its conclusion. This is a crisis.

You turn the volume down slowly, like you're disarming something. Volume thirty. Twenty-five. Twenty. You give yourself a moment of transition time. You cannot go from forty-one directly to the outside world. That's not how people work.

By the time you park, you're at a respectable fourteen. You sit there for a second. You take a breath. You remember that you are a person who exists in a society.

You get out of the car, lock it behind you, and walk toward the entrance looking completely normal.

Your ears are ringing slightly. You don't mention it. Nobody needs to know what was happening in that car. That was between you and the speakers, and frankly, it was exactly what you needed.