HaHa
I always feel this way.
My mother is kinda into radio scanning though and bought a 45-channel Realistik about 12-15 years ago and it still works to this day.
She just has other people (me mainly) program it for her but she isn't really into having lists of who's police car is who's and what fire station(s) got called.
I'm just thrilled to see that my "anyone listen to distant AM stations" thread actually has helped some people.
I started that thread to basically do the same thing the OP said in this thread, find out if anyone else did what I did.
Everyone almost (not on the Internet, people in every-day life) never knew you could listen to stations from "far away" on the AM band at night. Many didn't even seem to care, but that was the people who could care less about even local AM/FM or any radio in general. Actually some were just people who could care less about really anything at all.
I have a friend who really makes me feel like a criminal the way he talks, because he makes scanner enthusiasts out to be noisy people who just listen to stuff that is none of their business. He got me feeling so, that one time, I actually said I felt weird listening, but now I just say screw it, it's our air waves and it's "public safety" not private safety. My local police actually supports a guy who puts them on the Internet to listen to and links to it on their site.
All I can say is, don't ever feel bad about scanning. In my true and honest opinion, there is nothing wrong with scanning and/or being the only real technical person in your family and/or immediate area.
To tell you the truth, I'm really the only technical anything in my family. Don't get me wrong, much of my family does important jobs and go to school, but I'm truly the only one who cares about computers, Linux/UNIX, radio scanners, shortwave radios, and many other things that are under the category of "technical" or "electronics". Actually, I'm also really the only one in my family that truly respects Fire, EMS, and Law Enforcement. Not saying I'm related to a bunch of criminals or something, but they just don't believe in Public Safety like I do. I guess I'm just first for many things in my family, LoL.
Also, I'm way too damn much of a scanner geek, I mean, someone tells me that a drug bust or high-speed chase happened around me, I say, "I wonder if someone recorded it and put it up on the web" or I wonder if they (the police/law enforcement) were able to communicate and if all went well.
Anyway before this reply takes 25 pages, I'm going to end it here.