I just keep waiting for the RIAA to send me a cease-and-desist notice. Maybe then, it would stop.
This week, it seems as if Casey Kasem has set up shop inside my head with a hit parade of late-1970’s TV show themes.
I must admit, I did it to myself. I mentioned on a mailing list that Richard Dawkins’ (at the time) controversial book, “The Selfish Gene“, was published in the mid-1970s, and within moments, I had a creeping sensation from my lower back. I could tell something bad was coming, but I couldn’t tell how bad until…
“Come and knock on our door, Take a step that is new, Where the kisses are hers and hers and his Three’s Company too!”
The music was full blare, resonating within my skull, along with images of Jack Tripper and Crissy Snow bouncing around their apartment migraine-inducing festival of epic proportions. I don’t know where Janet was at the time. Maybe she was doing dishes.
The music slowly subsided until as I lay down to sleep that night, I just heard a reverberating chorus of “laughter is calling for you…” as I drifted off to an uneasy sleep filled with images of Mr. Roper jumping into my room shouting “Ah-Hah!”.
I had a moment’s reprieve the next morning until I got into an instant messaging chat with Jen Gagne at work. We had a conversation about her making a good deal of money from selling software in Second Life, and we wrote together:
(11:24:21) Jen G: Considering I only just opened my Web-based sales last Sunday (before that it was just the in-game shop), that’s pretty damn good. (11:24:29) matt-iiicq: Surprising and neat. (11:25:42) Jen G: … now I have the Love Boat theme in my head. “Sales! Surprising and neat… all log in… Second Life vends to you!”
Oh, no, I could hear it bubbling up again…
“The Love Boat! Soon will be making another run. The Love Boat! Promises something…”
…and my brain couldn’t figure out what the next line was, thus chewing on the lyrics for the next 24 hours.
“Promises something else on the run.” “Promises something with loaded guns.” “Promises something with chewing gum.” “Promises something love has begun.”
I had to look it up!
Google.com: “love boat lyrics”
Oh, thank goodness, finally:
“Promises something for everyone, Set a course for adventure, Your mind on a new romance…”
The tune continued uninterrupted inside my mind for over two days. Thanks a lot, Jen.
So I remarked to a co-worker over coffee the next morning, “Man, dude, you ever had those days when a song is just stuck in your head and it won’t go away?”
He nodded as he sipped his coffee.
“The last couple of days, I’ve had The Love Boat theme stuck in my head. How weird is that?”
“Oh, not weird at all,” he replied. “Until yesterday, I had the Hawaii Five-O theme stuck in my head.”
Oh, no.
Not again. Here it comes… no lyrics this time, just this theme playing over, and over, and over again in my mind. I began humming it as I walked through the halls of my data center.
Several hours later, I opened a door at work to find that co-worker on the other side of the door. He was humming the theme to “The Love Boat” under his breath. He paused to glare at me. I glared back.
At the same time, we both said the same two words of endearment expressed to someone who gets a catchy tune stuck in one’s head.
“Damn you.”