(I am a fan of a couple of Korean girl groups, BLACKPINK and Red Velvet. I am in my room listening to a song by the former while doing homework, when my younger brother enters and flops on the floor.)

Brother: “I’m booorrrrred. What are you listening to?”

Me: “BLACKPINK.”

Brother: “What song?”

Me: “Whistle.”

Brother: “Play it for me.”

(Because I know it’ll shut him up and make him leave, I restart the song and play it out loud. The start of the song goes, “Make ‘em whistle like a missile, bomb, bomb.” My brother laughs originally, but then when they start singing in Korean he looks confused.)

Brother: “What language is that?”

Me: “Korean. They’re a Korean group.”

Brother: “Korean? And they sing about bombs?!”

Me: “The song is actually a complex story about two people, and this girl is trying desperately to start a relationship with the other person. She encourages them to call out to her, to communicate, but the idea of whistling is also supposed to convey a heartbeat. The girl doesn’t want this person to go, and is expressing a desire for a lasting relationship.”

Brother: “…”

(He then listened to the rest of the song and left the room.)

Years ago I worked at a summer camp run by the church. One of the rules was that all music played by the staff had to be kid-friendly, which made sense. However, the kitchen staff were let off a bit, as they usually worked when the kids were out doing activities. This particular kitchen staff had two playlists: a non-kid-friendly one for prepping meals, and a kid-friendly one for mealtime. It’s important to note that you could see and hear into the kitchen from the dining hall.

One night, while the kids were still in the dining hall, one of the kitchen staff turned on the stereo and walked away to start cleanup duties. However he didn’t realize that the non-kid-friendly playlist was still cued up from earlier. I was in the kitchen asking someone a question, when suddenly I heard loud drums, electric guitar, and a growling heavy metal voice start to scream: “FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU– “

Immediately, the staff member who turned on the stereo dove across the room and unplugged the system to kill the music. The rest of us just stared at him in shock and then started to laugh hysterically. Fortunately, the camp director wasn’t around to hear the “F-bomb” near-miss, but for the rest of the summer, the kitchen staff were very careful to check the playlist before turning on any music!

(It is the week before Christmas, so nearly every business is playing Christmas carols, including the cafe that I’m in. Apart from me, the only other people in there are the two workers behind the counter.)

Carol: “…holy infant so tender and mild.”

Worker #1: *mumbling to herself, but still loud enough for me and the other worker to hear* “Just like a chicken wing.”

Me & Worker #2: *glance at each other in total silence, then both lose it*

Worker #1: *looking between the two of us* “What?”

(For as long as I can remember, I have loved a specific Christmas song. One day I’m telling my husband about it.)

Me: “I know it’s weird, but it’s like the holiday season doesn’t really begin until I hear ‘Snoopy’s Christmas.’ I don’t know why. It just isn’t Christmas until someone plays it.”

(The conversation meanders and I don’t think much more about it. About a week later, he gets a package, which he opens to reveal a set of CDs. It’s all the songs by a group called the Royal Guardsmen.)

Me: “What’s this? Who are these guys?”

Husband: “They’re the ones who sing that song.”

(He shows me one of the CDs. Sure enough, there’s “Snoopy’s Christmas” on the list. I’d never known who actually sang the song and, for whatever reason, never investigated the matter. I look to my husband for an explanation.)

Husband: “Now, it can be Christmas whenever you want!”

I’m on a well-known bus line, getting ready to visit family for the holidays. The bus has a rule requesting that passengers set their phones to silent or, at the very least, vibrate. One woman on the bus apparently didn’t get that memo. The ringer on her phone was loud enough to wake me up, and the ringtone she had was “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late).”

To make matters worse, someone kept calling her every five minutes or so. By the end of my trip, I got off the bus with a really bad eye twitch and a newfound hatred for Alvin and the Chipmunks.