The massive screw-up that greeted the first half hour of Alex Pierson's show on Tuesday night had me remembering a sometime recurring dream I haven't had in a very long time. But when I was working in radio, I experienced it several times over the years. 

In my case, the nightmare started with me being in the main control room with no one else in the station, sitting in front of the board, and hearing the hum of dead air. But no matter what I did, nothing would work. The turntables wouldn't start, the mic wouldn't turn on, the back-up wouldn't fire, the phones were out so I couldn't call engineering and while we were still on the air, nothing was playing.

And in the dream, I kept reaching for a cart but for some reason couldn't get to it, no matter how hard I tried. And the sound of that dead air hum just kept getting louder and louder and louder. 

I used to wake up from it in a cold sweat, usually right before I had to go into work. 

Fortunately, it never actually happened. But all these years later, I've never forgotten that nightmare.