I like our local radio stations down here.

Having recently moved down here from Lee County, I was, however, slightly concerned I wouldn’t be able to find one of my favorite shows.

That show is the great "Delilah" show, a 5-hour call-in show hosted by Oregonian Delilah Luke.

For those of you who have never experienced the awesome wonder of "Delilah," allow me to enlighten you.

Delilah doles out Christian-based advice to dozens of callers across the country every night, and, in her capacity as the self-proclaimed "Queen of Sappy Love Songs," she plays a song she finds appropriate for the caller's situation or story.

At face value, this would seem like a great idea. I can assure you it makes for great listening pleasure, but not in the way Delilah intends for it to be.

As a longtime listener to the show, I can say without fear of error that Delilah often makes strange choices for the songs she plays for her troubled listeners, song choices that are often thoroughly inappropriate for that listener's situation.

Suffice it to say, if you are calling into the “Delilah” show, your life has hit “soft rock bottom.”

Case in point, driving back from Birmingham one night after visiting with my friend Amber and our friends the Joneses, I caught the beginning of her show on a station there.

The first caller of the night was a woman who was calling Delilah from her hospital bed. Apparently, the caller had diabetes and had to have her foot amputated because she wasn't taking care of her self.

She blamed her situation on the fact she didn't have "a man in [her] life" to love her and make her take care of herself.

She then ended her soliloquy as all of Delilah's callers do: "Delilah, can you play me a song?"

The host responded as she always does, saying "Aww, baby, that's [insert adjective here]."

She then told the caller she should take better care of herself because she had two people that loved her: her savior Jesus and her friend Delilah.

Then, Delilah started to queue up the song.

Seeing that exchange, you would feel good about Delilah's advice. It seems kind and filled with empathy, right?

Wrong. When the song began, the familiar chords of Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" started filling my car.

Of all the songs she could have played for that poor woman, only Kenny Loggins' "Footloose" or “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies would have been a less tactful choice.

I laughed so hard I nearly drove off Highway 280.

Folks, in these troubling times we need something in our lives to bring us joy and laughter.

Delilah can and will do this for us.

Every time she plays "From a Distance" for a woman whose son is heading to Iraq or "Saturday in the Park" for a chain-smoking agoraphobe who hasn't left her house since the George H.W. Bush era, we can laugh at what would otherwise be horribly depressing situations.

When she plays "Lady in Red" for a woman who left her physically violent husband, you can sit in stunned silence and wonder what in the name of all that is holy made her think playing that song was a good idea.

And, yes, you'll get the occasional male caller like the one on last Monday's broadcast who credited his stripper wife for getting him off the drugs and into a stable relationship, albeit one with a stripper. Cue Chicago's "You're the Inspiration."

She might not be the most popular host down here but, at the very least, you'll have me, my friends Lane and Mitchell and a handful of other Delilah devotees ready to listen along every evening.

That's not too shabby.

Cliff McCollum is managing editor of the Gulf Coast Newspaper Group. He can be reached at cmccollum@gulfcoastnewspapers.com