Michael Jackson scared me, but not like you'd think

Michael Jackson died.  Sorry to hear that, condolences and everything, but surely the television stations didn't need to replace last night's shows for special programming.  Everywhere I looked on television, there was Michael, and even though I only surfed channels looking for something to relax with, I have enough of his music lodged in my brain so that even chance hearings of snips of songs will cause the earworm syndrome to kick in.  I avoid as much old-music-with-words as I can because for older-me the earworm thing is persistent -- we're talking days of repetition -- and last night's television programming ambushed me.  What's worse (for me) is that Michael's occasional "Wooooo!"s, or whatever they are, have enough similarity to Donna Summers's "Wooooo!"s, or whatever they are, to activate her songs as well.  Ever since last night's channel surfing, I've had Michael alternating with Donna in my head.  Wooooo!

Cut to this morning.  When I woke up (after hearing the duo in my dreams) Michael and Donna were still Woooing in my head and I knew I'd have to listen to something other than the air conditioner if I wanted them to retreat to whatever crevice of my brain they inhabit.  My choice of cure when earworms strike is orchestral music with no words, the kind generically called "classical."  Classical music is complex and long, and my musical-imaging talent is limited to 'catchy,' so I can listen to classical music without causing earworms.  Jazz helps cure earworms, too, but broadcasters sneak in songs with words, and I can't listen to that if I'm also working with words (I'm still trying to get a blogged book finished).  Jazz was out, classical was in.

Ever the optimist, I turned on the (nearly antique) radio-that-needs-an-antenna.  In the winter, the signal seems to come through with no problem, but in the summer the signal is erratic.  I know less about radio signals than I do about music, so I can as easily attribute the poor reception to more birds flying through the air in summer than in winter, or heat waves distorting radio waves.  Whatever the case, it's summer and what I heard from the radio was music + static.  The radio as a cure for Michael and Donna wasn't going to work. 

Next came the CD player.  I had Chopin CDs already in the player, perhaps from Christmas as I don't regularly listen to music, and Chopin would be wonderful for cancelling out Michael and Donna.  Unfortunately, although the CD player turned on and the time-sequence numbers showed that a CD was playing, and although the radio receiver worked on 'radio,' I couldn't get the signal from the CD player to make it through the receiver to the speakers.  Not on Phono, Tape or Aux.  Not on speaker left, speaker right.  No combination of (nearly antique)  dials produced Chopin or anyone else.

Drat.

The Wooooo!s continued to alternate, first Michael, then Donna, egged on by the front page of the newspaper, and my browser's home page.  Everywhere I looked or listened:  Michael.

In desperation, I unearthed our wind-up 'tornado radio,' for use during weather when the power is likely to cut out.  I wound up the radio, adjusted the antenna (small, but effective), and found the station.  The low grinding of the radio's small dynamo underneath the music was an acceptable price to pay for foiling the Woooo!s.   I refreshed my tea, folded the newspaper so that the front page was covered, and wound the radio to its fullest to provide a half-hour of classical music from Kansas Public Radio.  I sat down, sipped a mouthful of tea ...

... and noticed that the grinding of the radio seemed loud.  Perhaps the motor's sound was amplified by the buffet on which the radio was sitting?  I got up and moved the radio across the room to the china closet, and sat back down, but the motor noise now drowned out the music.  I got up and stared at the radio as if that would better help me figure out the noise.  As I stood there, the noise increased and I could see the flywheel inside the clear plastic housing rotating faster and faster.  Now it sounded like an airplane revving for takeoff.  What the hell?  Now it was a jet revving.  Air Force Brats know these things. The dog jumped up, stared at me as if I was what was revving.  Was the belt or rotor of whatever innard was spinning going to shoot the motor out through the plastic casing?  Would it hit the dog?  The china?  Me?  Shrapnel?  Glass shards?  Blood?  Severed things?  Newspaper article about freak wind-up radio IED killing woman and dog?  What could I throw over the radio to muffle an explosion?  Dining room chairs?  Don't be stupid.  The radio revved like a trapped aircraft carrier jet.  How fast could it go?  No time to think.  Grab the radio, burst through the kitchen door, run onto the porch, dog on my heels, radio screaming for takeoff (which way would it explode?), sleeping cat flies from the rocking chair, fling open porch door, throw the radio onto the deck, pull door shut ... just as the jet engine whimpered to nothing.  Now the radio sits in the sun, silent.  And it can stay there.

Michael Jackson's heart attack almost did the same to me.

[halfway through this anecdote, the top-of-the-hour live-streaming NPR news did a Michael Jackson cause-of-death report -- I may just have to hide in a mystery for the day]

Comments

[Beverly]

Made me laugh, made me laugh, made me laugh, laugh, laugh.

[Valerie]

I really did think of the dining room chairs. They were the closest things to hand.

Glad it made you laugh. :)