Renegade Brain

Sometimes I think my brain is trying to kill me.

Now, in most people, this sort of thing manifests as a desire to go skydiving, eat delicacies from cuisines whose native lands are suspiciously underpopulated, or sign up to return punts. Not me. When my brain wants to get rid of me, it puts random bits of music on repeating loops, in the hopes that it will drive me crazy.

On the one hand, this is a disturbingly effective ploy. On the other hand, why drive when it's a short walk?

For most of the last week, I have had a snippet from one of the cartoons the girls watch - a surprisingly entertaining show called Phineas and Ferb - running through my head. There I am, trying to develop a syllabus for my Western Civ II class, or doing dishes, or driving through Ohio (which is doubly nasty since there is so little to distract me), and all of the sudden I will hear in a 1950s-advertising-jingle style the words "Doofenschmirtz Evil In-cor-por-ated!" echoing in the vast and vaulty space between my ears.

And then I will have to sing along.

There are precious few people on this planet who will sing along with me, too. C'mon people, can't we all just sing along?

I guess not.

Eventually it will run its course and go into remission, to return some other day. I can handle that. And, in truth, it's better than some of the other things that my brain has dredged up from the juke box of annoying songs that it lovingly preserves in there (MacArthur Park days are just the pits).

At least I'm not returning punts.