I've seen a million patrons, and I've rocked them all
I suffer from a debilitating condition whose cure has eluded medical science for decades. I don't know the exact scientific terminology, but I call it The Jukebox Brain.
Being stationed at the library desk for eight hours a day brings on countless spells of this crippling malady. In the most obvious example, a book comes across the counter, and for the next hour and a half I've got the corresponding Elvis Costello song running in a constant loop in my head until I'm seconds away from complete madness. Rescue comes when a co-worker mentions something about how the latest news about Sally Kern "blew my mind," and then I've got a brand new chorus to sing in my head for the rest of the afternoon.
It can strike at anytime, so if someone asks me for directions, I immediately start singing to myself R.E.M.'s "Can't Get There From Here." When I go to lunch at the hot dog place across the street where the friendly first generation Greek immigrant proprieter carries a couple of dozen unwrapped weiners by stacking them up his impressively hairy arm, I unfortunately get the Rush Limbaugh theme song stuck in my head thanks to his blaring a.m. radio. When I have a conversation with someone about where we've travelled, I always mention that I've never been to Spain.
The most horrific recent example occurred when a woman who was most likely possessed by a demon or other wandering evil spirit walked into the library. She had a wild look in her eye like she'd been haunted for decades by the song in her head that she was cursed to sing to herself until she successfully passed its diabolical melody on to another host. She was the Typhoid Mary of Jukebox Brain sufferers, and she was finally liberated of her own crippling curse when she inexplicably sang the chorus and passed on to my sponge-like jukebox brain the nefarious 80s hair metal anthem, "Wanted Dead or Alive" by the Princes of Darkness themselves, Bon Jovi.
As dark as these depths sometimes get, I know it could always be worse.
Being stationed at the library desk for eight hours a day brings on countless spells of this crippling malady. In the most obvious example, a book comes across the counter, and for the next hour and a half I've got the corresponding Elvis Costello song running in a constant loop in my head until I'm seconds away from complete madness. Rescue comes when a co-worker mentions something about how the latest news about Sally Kern "blew my mind," and then I've got a brand new chorus to sing in my head for the rest of the afternoon.
It can strike at anytime, so if someone asks me for directions, I immediately start singing to myself R.E.M.'s "Can't Get There From Here." When I go to lunch at the hot dog place across the street where the friendly first generation Greek immigrant proprieter carries a couple of dozen unwrapped weiners by stacking them up his impressively hairy arm, I unfortunately get the Rush Limbaugh theme song stuck in my head thanks to his blaring a.m. radio. When I have a conversation with someone about where we've travelled, I always mention that I've never been to Spain.
The most horrific recent example occurred when a woman who was most likely possessed by a demon or other wandering evil spirit walked into the library. She had a wild look in her eye like she'd been haunted for decades by the song in her head that she was cursed to sing to herself until she successfully passed its diabolical melody on to another host. She was the Typhoid Mary of Jukebox Brain sufferers, and she was finally liberated of her own crippling curse when she inexplicably sang the chorus and passed on to my sponge-like jukebox brain the nefarious 80s hair metal anthem, "Wanted Dead or Alive" by the Princes of Darkness themselves, Bon Jovi.
As dark as these depths sometimes get, I know it could always be worse.
posted by DaysOfOurLibrary at 12:04 PM
1 Comments:
OK, I do this to my kids. They'll say something inane and I'll pull a song lyric from the recesses of my brain and belt it out. "Do you have a song for everything? Geez!" they complain.
Post a Comment
<< Home