I don’t visit my mom nearly as much as a good daughter should. The drive is agonizing, there’s not a whole lot to do, and I have commitments that keep me in Memphis most weekends. But thanks to Gustav, some family was there on hurrication. So I decided to evacuate to Huntsville for the weekend. I actually had a pretty good time, due in no small part to the fact that, after months of looking, I finally found a Wii Fit.

I headed home at about 1 p.m. and was happy to hear that one of the rock stations was playing the Titans game. I would have preferred to hear Saints/Bucs – but Huntsville’s even closer to Nashville than Memphis is, so I assume the area is pretty densely populated with Titans fans. I got to listen to part of the second quarter and a bit of the third before I lost the signal. Oh, the agony. So I feverishly scanned the channels, and found nothing. Switched to AM to see if there were any other games on… still nothing. The ONLY sports event on ANY station was some NASCAR race. On TWO DIFFERENT STATIONS! On every other AM station, someone was talking about Jesus.

I know Alabama’s pretty churchy, so I understand the religious talk, but…Who on earth listens to auto racing on the radio? All I could hear was some guy droning over the VROOM, VROOM, VEEEEEEE-ROOM of cars passing: “So and-so is in front, still…” Everybody’s pretty much driving in circles. As if racing wasn’t boring enough on television! What’s a girl got to do to get some football around here? I finally found the Titans game on some station in Mississippi in the last couple minutes of the fourth quarter, which turned out to be pretty exciting.

Next time I drive down there I’m borrowing somebody’s satellite radio. I know college football is king in the Heart of Dixie, but that was ridiculous.