Friday, October 10, 2008
The NERVOUS STOMACH Series: Ego-Strategy 33 – The Eighties
Current mood:Weather Beaten
Category: Life
Okay, I’m fourteen and it’s raining buckets of pails of bathtubs full of water on the roof of my parents’ big brick farmhouse. The remnants of Hurricane Whoever, according to the weather guy (the one with the cute dimples) on The Weather Channel. I don’t really care, I just want to be in my attic fort by myself.
The rain is louder up here and I’m okay with that because I have my I-Pod with all my 80s music blasting into my ears. My attic fort is one of the best I ever made; piles of boxes surrounded by hanging blankets. I brought up a power strip, Christmas lights, some comic books, and snacks. Nobody knows I’m up here. And my whole family has gone out for the evening, so not only do I have the whole attic to myself, I’ve got the whole house to myself.
I love 80s music even though my friends at school think I’m weird. I just think Madonna, Annie, Sheena, Olivia, and Debbie had it going on — and I don’t care what people think of me anyway.
I’m singing all the “shu-bop shu-bops” in all the right places in “Here Comes The Rain Again”…that’s probably why I miss the renewed wall of rain that pummels our house. I think it’s my calypso dancing during “The Tide Is High” that distracts me from noticing the tide rising from the pond out beyond the barn. And the crunching from my fort snacks during “Thriller” probably explains why I miss the cadre of ghouls dancing across the back lawn toward our farmhouse.
It’s my Tina Turner strutting during “What’s Love Got To Do With It” that brings me in front of the gable window. I see it all at once: the rain, the tide, the ghouls, my danger.
Too late, I realize I’m experiencing I.E.A.S. (I-Pod Environment Affective Syndrome). A under-reported phenomenon where I-Pod overusage in sensitive-yet-intelligent teens has occasionally produced the inexplicable ability to bring songs to life.
As the ghouls reach the wall and begin to climb toward my window, I glance at the song list on my I-Pod and scream — a high-pitched Homer-Simpson shriek — as the next song, “You Dropped a Bomb On Me”, queues up.
I race from my fort as I can just begin to hear the drone of a jet approaching through the gale…something throaty and huge, probably Army, probably filled with enough bombs to take out me, my 80s collection, and the ghouls too.
I grab at my I-Pod, trying to get my shaking fingers to work the round control. My fingers are greasy from the Cheetos I’ve been munching on…which doesn’t help things in any measurable way.
The plane’s roar is now louder than the rain, the flooding tide, and the moaning ghouls put together. I glimpse a fuselage against the darkened sky for just an instant as I yelp a prayer, grab at any title on the list and punch at the “Play” button.
“You Dropped a Bomb On Me” cuts out and immediately “Walkin’ On Sunshine” blasts in my earphones. In response, the clouds outside my window crackle, rumble, and break. The plane motor recedes into the distance. A beam of sunlight floods the attic and I dance around in very gay fashion.
After I document the whole thing in my journal and the local newspaper has dismisses my story as “an unsubstantiated tale from a disturbed teen”, I sneak back to my great attic fort, scan the songs on my I-Pod, and pull up “It’s Raining Men”.
For FUN, I put my stuff at www.GregoryGerard.net
For SERIOUS, I put my stuff at www.JupitersShadow.com
I invite you to visit my stuff.
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