Accidents are funny things. Once they happen, you spend a lot of time running through all the events in your mind to see where you could have done something different to prevent the accident. Sometimes, in hind-sight, you can see a clear point where if you had made a different decision, perhaps the accident wouldn't have happened. I've had that experience with a couple of incidents involving flatware and electrical outlets, for example. Zowie!
However, running through the events leading up to yesterday's unfortunate event, I can't find any real contributing cause beyond the fact that I was probably still a little groggy from just having gotten out of bed. My guard was down.
Let's take a look (cue the wavy line effect that tells us we are going all the way back to yesterday morning).
"OH NO!", I wailed in anguish from the bathroom as I was preparing to take my shower.
"NO!"
"NO!"
"NO!!!!"
Naturally, no one in the house paid the slightest bit of attention to me. This was bad, I may need to get one of those emergency medical bracelets where you press the button and help is sent your way. Won't my family be surprised when the police and medics bust down the front door, storming past them eating their breakfast in oblivion, while I'm trapped in the tub's drainpipe, shouting for help.
"NO!!!!!!" I wailed with a bit more emphasis.
"What's the problem?" My lovely wife finally noticed my distress! Success!
"For absolutely no reason, I now have the song Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins stuck in my head!"
I heard some kind of sound from my wife, and I'm not certain what she said anymore but I do remember that she wasn't exactly expressing concern for me and my situation. Aren't women supposed to be naturally empathetic?
Well, I don't care if Feed the Birds was Walt Disney's favorite song, but I wanted it out! I started my shower, in hopes that the shower's natural reverb would inspire a replacement song. There is no reverb in Feed the Birds - I don't think. I'd check, but I'd be afraid of it popping back into my head.
It wasn't working, so I started violently shaking my head, water and shampoo flying every which way, in hopes of SHAKING the song out. I nearly lost my balance with all that head shaking exertion and then as I was flailing in the shower, trying to NOT lose my last bit of balance (it never occured to me that it might just be more dignified to just fall and get it over with), the song actually left my mind's 8-track player. Apparently, my head was too dangerous a place for Walt Disney's favorite song. (Also, as a side note, I KNOW that there is an 8-track player in my head...how else would I get songs stuck in endless loops?)
Well,the hasty exit of Feed the Birds left room for another song .... Chim Chim Cher-ee.
Trying to escape my Mary Poppins fate by running out of the bathroom, a strategy that never works in horror movies, I heard my youngest daughter belting out the song Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little from "The Music Man." That did it! Mary Poppins was gone!
I was joyous! I took the kids to school!
"The Music Man" took care of the problem! Additionally, no Music Man songs were stuck in my head! That song was just what the doctor ordered!
That's when A Spoon Full of Sugar started playing on my internal infernal 8-track!
"JULIE ANDREWS AND DICK VAN DYKE BETTER BE IN MY BACK SEAT!" I yelled this to the dead bug plastered to my windshield, its one remaining "good" eye staring at me blankly.
"Wait a minute," I thought, "What's a dead bug doing on my windshield in this weather?
At that moment the song Another One Bites the dust started playing on the 8-track in my head.
Giving in to my apparent 8-track curse, I hummed along.
Haha - It has been reported that the Disney song "It's a Small World" is the one most likely to stay trapped in people's minds.
Posted by: DanG | February 06, 2009 at 12:08 PM
Thank goodness I had the radio on when I read this post. Otherwise, MY eight-track tape might have started working...
Posted by: Kathy G | February 10, 2009 at 05:30 PM
I hate ear-worms. I've heard if you sing the song all of the way through the ear-worm will stop, However, most of the songs that end up playing in my head, I don't know well enough to finish! Such is life!!
Posted by: Deb | February 16, 2009 at 12:43 PM