Mood Music

There is a guy in the subway who plays the bamboo flute every morning in the underpass at Bryant Park. He plays his little heart out, God bless him, but I still want to cram his flute down his throat.

It's just way too shrill to be played in an acoustical-nightmare subway tunnel first thing in the morning. The sound echoes throughout the tunnel, making it inescapable to my virginal ears. And no matter how high my iPod is turned up, the bamboo flute always weasels its way in.

I feel bad for the bamboo flutist. If he was playing someplace less confining, I'm sure his music would be lovely. He plays the soundtrack to the token nail salon mood music. The music that is supposed to relax you as someone carves strips of skin from your heel with a razor blade.

Mostly every nail salon and massage parlor in town plays the same soundtrack. Asian Spa Moods 05… or something.

The tunes are always in the background, unassuming and not meant to be noticed. So you may imagine my surprise one afternoon when, at a nail salon, I found myself listening to the mood music.

It wasn't that I was bored, or that there was no sound in the shop, it was because something about the music caught my attention - the exact opposite of what mood music is supposed to do.

I looked around the salon and noticed that the other girls had their ears cocked as well. We all heard it. And we were all waiting to hear that strange something again.
My ears were peeled for about 30 seconds when I heard a small cry break through the noise in the salon. It didn't seem to be coming from the speakers, so I figured that the mood music was standard-issue and that the strange sounds were coming from the hall or from a neighboring store.

When I heard the cry a second time, louder and longer than the first, a woman next to me said, "Is that a baby?"

My sentiments exactly. Is there a baby in your wall?

"No," the nail technician replied. "It's a cat."

"Oh! You have a cat."

"No. The cat is on the tape. Very relaxing."

Ummm. Wha?

Yes, that's right, there was a dying cat on their mood music tape. This did not put me in the best mood.

I spent the remainder of my pedicure thinking about what kind of record label would actually market a series of dying cat tracks to spas. The only type who would find such music relaxing would be a dog. Maybe the tape was meant for doggie daycare centers to put their lodgers at ease. Like that episode of How I Met Your Mother when Lily sold her paintings to the vet.

The whole experience was pretty creepy. But I did get a good pedicure out of it so I will be going back for more. Maybe next time I’ll borrow someone’s pooch for a little auditory pampering.