The Curse of the Mummy

When we were preparing to leave Reno, one thing we did was put some things at the end of our driveway that we were giving away for free. This was signified by a paper with “FREE” written on it which was taped to the end. I thought the meaning would be clear. Take things, they’re yours. And people did come and often took things.

But not everyone seemed to glean the purpose of the free pile. Someone, I don’t know who, had another idea. They added a box full of things to our free pile. When I went out, at the end of the day, to pull it in, I found things we hadn’t put there. This defeats the purpose people! We were trying to get rid of things, not gain new things.

That being said, there were several interesting finds in the box. There was a PS2 and some PS2 games. We managed to sell those to a game store for $60. Not bad for items left at the end of our driveway. There was a harmonica which we gave to Carver. I have no idea if he has yet tried to play it. There was a VCR (yeah, those still exist) and a VHS tape of the movie Stand By Me.

Our saga of this blog post begins with one more item in the box: A iPod Shuffle. Since we were going to be spending our lives in a car with no CD player, we thought this could be a useful tool to have. We would put songs we wanted on it and we could listen to those.

The iPod already contained several songs. For example there was “I Got a Feeling.” Have you ever listened to this song? It begins:
I got a feeling
Tonight’s gonna be a good night
Tonight’s gonna be a good night
Tonight’s gonna be a good good night

It continues in much this way for its remaining two and a half minutes. So I wonder: Why is this called “I Got a Feeling?” Shouldn’t the title be “Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night” given that those lyrics will be repeated 490 times in the course of the song? (Writing other lyrics was clearly too hard. At least give it the right title.)

Syarra took on the project of culling the songs that were already on the iPod and adding new ones. She did a great job, with the eclectic mix to make both Alrica and me happy. There’s songs by Weird Al and Tom Lehrer (to make Erich happy) and songs by Bette Midler and Madonna (to make Alrica happy). There are songs from shows like Avenue Q and Little Shop of Horrors (Erich) and songs from shows like Les Miserables and Scarlet Pimpernel (Alrica). There are songs and bands that please us both like Queen and They Might Be Giants. And then there is the song we can’t get rid of.

Whenever Syarra would connect the iPod to a computer or other device to edit the song list, one of the songs that was on the iPod when we got it doesn’t show up in the list. You can’t delete it. It isn’t there. Except it is there, because whenever you play the songs on the iPod, it is one of the songs in the playlists. Syarra called it a zombie song. No matter how much you kill it, it won’t die.

Except the particular song holding zombie status on this iPod is “Walk Like an Egyptian,” the 1986 classic by the Bangles with their very 1986 hair. And since it is about Egyptians, we decided that it isn’t a zombie song, rather it must be a mummy song.

Whey oh whey oh

 

And so once every cycle through our songs all the cops in the donut shops say “whey oh whey oh ay oh whey oh” (Note, this could be “way” like direction rather than “whey” like milk, or even “weigh” like find out how much you are pulled down by gravity. I’m unclear on which “whey” is being used in the lyrics and context is little help here.) The tomb which was sealed in 1986 is breached once more and the mummy rises again.