Grocery store music.  This week I was shopping for a few things in the market close to my house.  I needed to pick up some bananas, toilet paper, bread and cheese. Not such a long list.  No problem I do this all the time.

Well on this trip I was assaulted with bad--really bad American hip-hop music.  Usually the shop plays questionable 80's music but whoever picked the hip-hop and pop station on this day must not speak English.  It was bad.  This says a lot coming from me, because I have a soft spot in my heart for this kind of music.

There's something so funny about going to pick up a few things at the store and hearing everyone around you speaking Bulgarian and knowing that they have no idea the lyrics of the songs being played around them.  I thought: these cute old ladies have no idea what's going on.

It gave me the giggles. <!--more-->The feeling reminded me of being in on a secret with your best friend when you're little.  You remember--it's that feeling of thinking you know something that the adults don't know because the secret is related to something kind of illicit (swearing or boys).

I felt exactly the same way in the shop with my basket of food.  The song was full of swearing and references to sex and I felt like I was the only one who knew it.  But unlike the secrets we trade when we're little this one kind of embarrassed me.  I hate that the music we export is tied so much to sex, drugs and violence.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the music; I just hate that this is what other people in other countries know us for.  I hate that this is where so many of our stereotypes come from.  But more than all of this, I hate how easily these songs get stuck in your head.  I was singing one of these songs all the way home--swinging my bags and everything.  That's embarrassing.