My Terrifying Experience

Perhaps my story isn’t nearly as horrible as what’s happened recently to . . . well, anyone who isn’t me, but it was horrible for me, and really, I’m not sure what else matters.

Of course, I love you all and hope that whatever’s going on is quickly resolved.

But back to me.

I was in my office yesterday, which is what I do when I’m at work (I’m in there RIGHT NOW!) and I had Pandora on, because who can work without music? For some reason it was on shuffle, so it was playing random music from my playlists. This is fine with me. I don’t need to be stuck on one type of music all day. One minute it was playing show tunes, then The Offspring, then Queen, then Christmas music, then Tom Petty. I was doing my thing, it was doing its thing, and then . . .

(This would have been a great Halloween story, that’s how scary this is . . .)

I heard some sort of musical attempt that sent a sliver of icy hot pain right through my skull. Sort of like the feeling you get when someone that you’ve mortally offended stabs you in the eye with a pickax.

I don’t know if that’s happened to you, but I sincerely hope not.

I clicked over to Pandora to see what sort of evil had happened, and the current window was showing something by some guy named Justin Bieber. What kind of name is that? And is he the anti-Christ?

There was no time for thinking, I had to stop it, so I searched feverishly for the thumbs down, though I’m not sure there are enough thumbs down for this, and so damaged was my brain already that I could barely find the pause button.

By the time I got it stopped my hands were shaking, and I’d broken out in a cold sweat. Up till this point, I had avoided hearing anything of Justin Bieber’s music and my life was pretty damn good. But now – now I have this image in my head of a sound that should be banned.

Before going to bed last night I took a lot of narcotics so I wouldn’t have nightmares.

I’m certainly not any kind of musical expert. Right now, for example, Train’s playing. In some circles, this would get me mocked. I like to play the 1812 Overture just because I like loud booming cannons. I like to imagine Foo Fighters doing a rendition of The Nutcracker. I have no musical ability myself at all.

But this . . . this is the sort of thing that could lead to me being more selective about what’s going on around me. Or it could teach me to be ready for any adversity, and give me the opportunity to hone my already cat-like reflexes until I could turn it off within a second.

I’ll have to think about which way to go on that. My reflexes could certainly use some upgrading. Last night I was driving and the gangnam song came on and my reflexes whipped into shape and I froze, in absolute terror.

Once the zombie apocalypse comes I’m dead meat.