Brain (s)Craps

I've been thinking about old songs quite a bit lately. That is to say, I've been thinking about songs that were originally released more than twenty years ago. Not that these songs are old or the people that remember them are old, but...well, I think you get what I'm trying to say.

I had to dig through our old albums to find some of the songs that had been haunting me for the past few months, but it was well worth it. Am I the only person that gets a little nostalgic when I hear the sound of a needle hitting vinyl on an old record player? Sure, the sound quality of your average CD totally blows vinyl away, but for me there's nothing that takes me away like the old snap-crackle-hiss of an old record on the turntable. Or Calgon. Calgon takes me away too, but that's another story.

Anyway, so I've been hearing these snippets of songs in my head for months now. It would start off with Kansas ("Dust in the Wind" and "Carry on my Wayward Son"), meandered through some of the Beatles White Album ("While my Guitar Gently Weeps" ran through my head almost constantly for a solid week interspersed with "Rocky Raccoon" and "Obla-Di Obla-Da"), and finally wound up with Erasure and The Cure battling for supremacy in some kind of weird auditory wrestling match. After finally locating the albums and giving them a listen, I felt so much better...

There's a lot of political talk going on in the blogosphere these days. My good friends Chad and Greg have finally succumbed and made major political posts on their blogs. I can't fault them for it. These are important issues, and the outcomes will shape the futures of our children, our children's children, and our children's children's children. Most people are too self centered to see past their own comfy existence to realize that their actions have consequences not only for them, but for those they care about. Anyhow, I'm getting off topic. You can probably look at my previous post and make assumptions on where i stand on most things. As I have said previously, I don't intend for this to be a political blog. There are other people far more eloquent than I expounding on those subjects. I'll try to stick to other mundane details.

In Rememberance of Those who are Still Here
Today was a rather arresting day. As I sat slaving away at explaining the finer workings of electronic machines to people that are supposed to be diagnosing and treating human beings, I received a frantic phone call from my wife's sister, Christina. It went something like this:

"Hello?" (perturbed that she was calling me at all, much less at work.)
"Have you heard from Marianne (my wife) or Max (their youngest brother)? I just got a voicemail from Max and he said something about he got hit by a car and they were going to try to go somewhere. He didn't sound very good on the message."
"Oh crap. No, I haven't heard anything. Have you talked to your sister?"
"No, I didn't know what to do. Does he have one of your cell phones?"
"No, and since he and his girlfriend just broke up he had to give back the one she gave him."
"I don't know what to do..."
"Call the hospital and see if they've been admitted yet and I'll try to call Marianne and see if she's heard from him."

It's not verbatim, but it's pretty darn close. I spent the next 35 or 40 minutes trying to contact my wife with no luck. All of the lines at her workplace were busy the entire time. Tension was mounting. I also called the hospital myself but no one had been admitted by that name. As the minutes ticked away, I became more and more desperate. I tried to call back my sister-in-law several times with no luck. Finally, at 3:02pm I got through the busy phones at my wife's workplace.

"Hello?" My wife's voice was flat and strangely emotionless. Not good. I decided to try a tactful approach.
"Hey. Have you talked to Max or your sister?"
"Yes." Again, flat and strange. My stomach began limbering up for floor exercises.
"Is he okay? Did he get hurt?"
"He's dead!" Not flat any more. My stomach did a free fall, my vision greyed out for a moment.

Max wax only 17. He couldn't be dead. We had just been hanging out the night before. When we had left for work this morning, he was passed out on our couch, sleeping on one of my pillows, covered in one of our blankets. We had sat around last night eating fajitas, shooting off fireworks, and ended the night watching Princess Bride for the eighty trillionth time. This good natured kid that I had mentored since he was ten could not be dead. This kind and gentle boy who had at the tender age of twelve offered to buy me a truck if I would marry his sister because he liked how she was always happy and smiling with me could not have been taken away like this. I felt cold.

"WHAT!?!" My co-workers jumped and stared at me. I think they did, anyway. It felt like people were staring at me. "No, baby, no!"
My wife was sobbing now. "Everyone is up here crying. If I ever find that old man, I'm gonna kill him!" The rest degenerated into incomprehensible utterances behind the tears.
"I'm coming home baby, I'll be there as soon as I can."

She cried some more and I tried to comfort her enough that I could get off the phone and get started on the way home. It was an hour drive with no traffic, and I was going to have a hard time keeping it together long enough to make it all the way back without wrecking myself. Something in my voice must have been getting hysterical, because my wife stopped crying.

"Baby, just calm down. Calm down!"
"I can't be calm - I don't know how you can tell me to be calm when...when Max is..."

It must have clicked to her then what was going on.

"No, baby, it's not Max, it was his DOG, Fry!"

I don't want to sound cruel or anything, but I've never been so relieved that a dog died. Fry was a good and handsome puppy, and he will be missed, but at that moment I was too busy accordioning back into my office chair with my heart racing a mile a minute.

Much later, after I was home and had given Max the first hug I had ever given him in seven years, we had an opportunity to listen to the infamous voice mail that started it all.

Max clearly said "Fry got hit by a car..."

Talk about a wake up call to teach you to appreciate the people around you.