As you may or may not know, I’ve been hosting a radio show once a month since March-ish. And while I love the idea of being a radio host, you also may remember that I find it extremely stressful. The studio is about 45 minutes away, in an old, run-down factory that is most definitely haunted, and I have to go there on a Sunday when no one else is around. This necessitates Ken accompanying me, when he could be building me a new garden house (his current project) or napping because he’s exhausted from being awake. And it’s a good job he comes with me, because the station is unstaffed, and every time I go, something has been unplugged or a button that’s supposed to be pushed isn’t, and I never know until the very second I start the show, when Ken will pop up behind the glass between the studio and the ‘green room’ (it’s green—that’s the only thing about it that resembles a Green Room) and frantically mouths “It’s just dead air!” Then it’s a mad dash to figure out what’s gone wrong THIS time.

But this month, due to a variety of reasons, none of my guests were able to make it to the studio for today’s episode of Reader’s Delight. Normally, when someone can’t come in, they just pre-record themselves doing a reading, but then I had a brainwave. Why couldn’t I interview these writers remotely via Zoom, and upload the audio to the station’s scheduled playlist? Never mind that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to do any of that, but it was okay because the one thing I DO have, the most important thing, is a daughter who is a WHIZ at sh*t like this:

Me: Hey honey, do you know how to splice together three audio tracks into one and then convert the whole thing into an MP3 file?
Katelyn: Sure.
Me: I WILL GIVE YOU TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS IF YOU DO THIS FOR ME.
Katelyn (laughs): Okay, Mother.

And that’s just what we did. I interviewed 2 people remotely (I already had one pre-recorded track because the author was in Europe) and then sent the files to Kate.

Me: Are you sure you know how to do this?
Kate: What? It’s already done. Check your email.

And I was SO thrilled…until I listened to the whole thing through. It was terrific, the authors were engaging, the audio was edited so smoothly…the only problem was ME. Specifically right at the end. I don’t have professional Zoom, so I only had 40 minute sessions, and the last author and I had had a wonderful chat at the beginning, using up a lot of Zoom time, unbeknown to me. It wasn’t until she was in the middle of her reading that I got a pop-up that said, “You have 10 minutes remaining” so I started to panic. She finished with about 4 minutes to spare, but I was so flustered that, at the end of my outro, I said—and I’m not joking—“Until next time…uh, listen to me then.” And if that’s not the WORST tagline that a radio show host could have, I don’t know what is. So now I’m brainstorming for really punchy taglines. Maybe “Until next time, keep reading!”? “Until next time, keep adding to your TBR pile!”? I don’t know—if you have any ideas, PLEASE tell me! Because hopefully, I’ll be doing this remotely from now on, depending on what happens this afternoon at 2 pm when the show airs. Until next time…listen to me then (by streaming it on CKMS Radio Waterloo 102.7 FM).