His mom made the best fried egg sandwich you ever had. That was the reason I went along... actually, that was the reason I'd continually suggest that we go for a visit... and "go" we did... gas was cheap...
Steve's car was the kind of car that got you from point A to point B. I had no car and never - ever complained about it. Its radio could not be shut off or the volume lowered because the power/volume button had vanished... that was fine, because we had (in that time between 8-tracks and CDs) a box of cassettes.
Somehow a Dire Straits cassette ended up in his car. I do not know where it came from or whether he'd bought it and just never told me...
We hopped in his car after class that Friday night and headed north. He popped in the Dire Straits tape and it played. It was a single. Side A was "Walk of Life" and side B was, well, the same song...
Steve liked the song...
Side A played, we bopped along up the Thruway to it. Side B played, I didn't get all the lyrics, but, hey, it was catchy. Side A started again and Steve pressed the eject button...
...but nothing happened.
"Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies, Bee-bop-a-lu, baby what I say"
"Hmm, that's weird..."
"What?"
"The tape is stuck."
He got the action, he got the motion
...and stuck it was...
Over and over it played...
Turning all the night time into the day...
There was nothing we could do...
Yeah, the boy can play. The dedication devotion. turning all the night time into the day...
...couldn't turn it down...
Here comes Johnny...
...we couldn't turn it off...
he got the action...
...I couldn't pry it out...
you do the walk, you do the walk of life
over and over and over and over for HOURS and HOURS...
Thru the tolls, after the stops at McDonalds... ...it was maddening...
The outcome of this event in my life is that I have a tendency to get a song stuck in my head. There are several songs that will send me over the brink of madness with just a phrase of the lyric or three or four of the notes strung together. Haunted, I tell you, for weeks at a time, without rest like a man fleeing a ghost...
Among them:
The Muppet Show Song
If I Only had a Brain (very trying while Shrub reigned)
and
Supercalifragilistic
...but there's one that gets me every time...
...one, like no other...
...like a bear-trap, it catches in my brain...
...and I have this recurring dream...
- - -
It's a long corridor and the nurses watch her as she walks to the room. This is her annual visit. She enters the room and he sits there in his wheel chair wishing that he had flossed more often. She kisses him and moves a chair over close to him. She asks about the food and he scowls, waving a hand. He never intended to live this long or here... ...his heart starts to race as she gets up to leave. He has forgotten to turn off his hearing aids. The casual observer will think that she is leaning in to kiss him goodbye. He pulls away. She persists, holding his head in place as she whispers in his ear, almost inaudible. His wild eyes stare at her as she collects her jacket and purse.
It's a long corridor and the nurses watch her as she walks to the elevator and rides it down to the ground floor.
"Do you think he'll have started yet?"
"I'm sure of it."
Standing just outside his door they listen for it. It's weak, a mumble, the only breath he really has... yes, but it's unmistakable, it's musical, it's catchy...
"We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...
We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...
We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...
We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine..."
I have decided to be very kind and very generous to my nieces...
-silly
3 comments:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! Much better than Elmo singing the pizza song. "The pie is made of dough and then you throw it into the air"... Sigh, I've stopped laughing now.
Hey, you could have the song I'm Too Sexy for Myself" with the vision of Al Bundy running through your head doing that special dance he did on Married with Children.
personally, I've found that singing I'm a little teapot helps to remove any residual harmonies that have worked their way into my cerebrum.
PS nieces were created to be spoiled and to have fun with, otherwise what's the point?
Post a Comment