A funny anecdote was fortunate enough to flutter my way on the bus last week.

I don’t own an Ipod. Financial reason is one, but the other coincides with the same logic as to why I don’t have MySpace or wear Crocs: I hate my generation. But enough about that.

I do however, own an affordable audio producing personal listening device. Sitting on the bus the other day, my earbuds were in place and I was reading – a double whammy in Manhattan signology meaning, “leave me the hell alone.” An older woman was sitting next to me, also reading, but lacking a listening device – a rookie mistake.

Out of nowhere, she tapped me on the shoulder and my Pavlov’s dog facial expression of, “What do you want, crazy?” emerged. She shoved the magazine she was reading in my face. I instinctively took out my earbuds and she said, “It says music relieves stress.”

I replied in my nice Upstate New York tone, “I don’t doubt it.” I put my earbuds back in and the old woman went back to her literature while I went back to mine.

But I started to think. Not about the piece of trivia – a fact I had learned in high school psychology – but about her approach. She had made the effort to break my bubble of personal space in order to relay a piece of non-urgent information. She interrupted my music to give me a fact about what I was doing with my music.

In a way, she was trying to close the generation gap, revealing her acceptance and approval of something so many of my peers have enlisted as an extra-curricular activity. This tidbit in Good Housekeeping made her realize why so many New Yorkers have strings hanging off their earlobes and detaching themselves from the rest of the world.

My generation was born into the mushroom cloud of a stress bomb and have been feeling the after effects ever since. Everything causes cancer, heart disease, immune deficiency, obesity, depression. Kids are learning how to spell Adderall before apple. Nothing is private. Success is measured in dollars and charity is measured in how well you dole out those dollars. My generation leaves college with a debt that would rival any poker player in Reno.

Crime is down in most major cities across the nation, but it’s only because the crazies and criminals can’t afford to live in major cities. Everything is zoned, requires references, pay stubs, and tax returns. So crime, corruption, and drug use is slowly seeping into the suburbs, a once sacred place of wholesomeness is now becoming a hotbed of immorality. So what do we do? We buy dogs and set up security measures. We enlist trigger-happy citizens as neighborhood watch. Anything to keep my bubble intact and untainted.

No wonder my generation had found a mobile therapist in their playlist. Sad days require sad songs. Happy days insist on mood music. We are no longer happy with the jukebox at the bar having 50 songs. It must contain a digital library of over 5000, one for every taste that drunkenly stumbles over and shoves their sweaty dollars down its throat. Play my song, damnit! And I’ll pay you extra if you play is right now. Alcohol, once the ultimate de-stressor must be coupled with great music. Like love and marriage, as Frank says in a song, you can’t have one without the other.

As the old lady got off the bus, I watched her walk slowly down the block. She wasn’t stressed. She had been through it all before and knew how to handle it, just as my generation was slowly getting a grasp on it.

It was a nice hiccup to a mundane day of a new semester, and I realized that this woman could have easily tapped me on the shoulder and told me how bad earbuds are for me, or that the music of today is disgusting. But she didn’t. All she did was reaffirm that my actions were all right by her. I didn’t need her approval or interruption. Nonetheless I was grateful for both.