To follow up on yesterday’s super-inspiring Peruvian llamas post, about which a number of you wrote me to suggest perhaps I needed a vacation (thanks, genius), here’s a song that will make you feel like you just won one for free.  And because you got lippy with me, I’m going to tell you, in the longest, wordiest possible way, how it was I came to find this song.  Aren’t you excited?  …Say you’re excited.

Long before there were iPods and MP3 players (aside: I love how we still say “MP3 players” even though the market for Apple alternatives only existed for about 20 minutes), there were discmen and CDs.  And poor students have existed since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of the $800 college textbook (hi, Dad!).  So it was a big deal when my university’s student union would have CD sales.  This being a student union at a small university in the middle of nowhere that nevertheless attracted a healthy international student body, the selections were really weird.

This one particular afternoon, after I’d slept off my hangover (sorry, Dad…), I padded down the street to the union to get a cheap late lunch before gently installing myself in the library. And when I walked through the front doors, what hit my senses first?  Well, yes, stale beer on the floor, but – a huge rack of CDs.  Hot damn!  I got three: a Meatloaf album, a classical thing of some kind, and our pal Louis Prima.

Whenever I have a hard day that still allows some room for bucking up, unlike those days that are so frustrating you just want to hide in a dark closet, I put this on.

Now aren’t you glad I took you on that stroll down Memory Lane?  …Say you’re glad.