Have you ever had a friend who absolutely loved a song that you kind of liked, but got tired of after the first couple of times you heard it? Who insisted on playing it as much as possible? ...What happens when that friend is the radio?

On a beautiful summer day, it's common to see a boy and a girl, talking and laughing, driving to the beach for the weekend. What isn't so common is the car joining in the conversation.

Sam and Mikaela were having a great time, taking Bumblebee for some sun and surf (not that he'd be partaking in the surf part), and explaining the need for such strange concepts as 'sunblock' and 'bathing suits' to him. At a lull in the conversation, the radio flipped on, Chumbawamba's 'Tubthumping' blaring from the speakers. The playful mech had taken a liking to the song, and played it as often as he could.

"I get knocked down, but I get up again..."

"Aw, Bee," Sam moaned. "Not this song again. Why can't we listen to the Strokes or something?" He reached for the radio's knob, but it refused to budge.

Mikaela laughed. "What, you don't like this song?" she asked. "I think it's cute."

It was a good thing Sam didn't really need to pay attention to driving, as Bee was currently the one taking them around the curves in the road. "It's not that I don't like the song," Sam replied, still wrestling with the radio, "it's that he plays it all the time. C'mon, Bee, haven't you heard of 'driver has radio rights'?"

"He is the one driving," Mikaela pointed out. "If you were, we'd probably have gone straight off the road back there."

"Huh? Oh!" Sam gripped the steering wheel again. The engine revved a bit in a mechanical chuckle.

Sam made sure he was watching the road as they passed a couple other cars. They had to keep up the illusion that the car wasn't controlling itself, after all. "All the time," he said again. "To and from school, when we're hanging out, when he wants to get my attention so I'll come hang out… It gets a bit old, buddy."

The radio finally clicked off with a whirr that sounded suspiciously like "Awww…"

Mikaela looked from Sam to the dash and back again, then shook her head, amused. "I think you two need to work out a system. Talk it over, figure out who gets to choose, and when."

"We could alternate picking songs," Sam suggested. 'Tubthumping' immediately started up again. "No no no," he protested, and it cut off abruptly. "You just played that. Maybe not alternating…"

"Half-hour blocks, maybe?" Mikaela said. "With the caveat that you can't repeat songs?"

"And for trips shorter than half an hour, one of us could pick one way, and the other on the way back. How's that sound?" Sam finished.

Bumblebee agreed.

Mikaela, though, laughed and reached for the radio before Sam could. "But for at least a few minutes, it's my turn. I want to listen to something from this decade."

In the end, except for Bee complaining about salt and sand in uncomfortable places, it was a great weekend.

Thanks for reading! Also, please check out my fic 'Stars and Sparks', posted in the Stargate section! (I put it there before I realized didn't allow crossposting.)

-Illogically