Hearing the Auditory

"Hey," I ask Mark as we merge onto 100 southbound, "Is driving with headphones in illegal?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I think so. Maybe you can only do it with a permit."

What? I laugh.

"You know," he continues, "It's like being deaf. I think you need a permit to drive if you are deaf because you can't, you know, hear things like sirens and stuff. You can't hear auditory signals."

"That's redundant. Hearing auditory signals."

"What?"

"You don't need to say both hearing and auditory," we approach the carpool lane. "Of course I would hear auditory signals."

"Well," Mark says as we round the corner, "I was just being ridiculous."

"No," I say, thinking about how much I like our little debates, "you often DO say things just to be ridiculous, but I don't think this was one of those times."

A pause.

"Well," says Mark archly, "That's your opinion."

Shit. I got nothing.
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P.S. If I would have really been on my game, I would have pointed out that EVERYONE needs a permit for driving. It's called drivers license. But, at the time I was distracted with pondering the fact that I drove with my ipod earbuds in yesterday - hence the legal question.