feeling way too stronger every day

(originally posted 4/22/2018)

If I’m being completely honest most of what I write is self-indulgent. If you’re a regular you’ve come to expect it but if for some reason this happens to be the first time you’ve stumbled upon this site I just want to preface everything below with the following; this one is particularly self-indulgent.

But it could also be a warning to those of you who suffer from the same problem I have.

That problem?

Certain songs that resonate somewhere deep within me that shouldn’t be resonated.

I knew about this song, having had a similar incident in the past, but when it came on I had the radio low and wasn’t paying any attention.

Then it hit the 2 minute 17 second mark and it was too late to do anything about it.

The windows went all the way down and volume went all the way up and I swear on all that is holy I didn’t touch a thing. Usually sending the knob to eleven would cause the speakers to buzz and crackle but both the woofer and the tweeter were completely on board.

Let me be clear about this. I dislike classic rock. I dislike the band Chicago. I dislike the first 2 minutes and 16 seconds of Feelin’ Stronger Every Day (especially the ‘ at the end of feelin) but from 2 minutes and 17 seconds onward I am a man possessed.

I realized that while my hands were in contact with the wheel I was no longer holding onto it. I couldn’t because I was sporting full-blown jazz hands. Jazz hands for fuck’s sake!

My left foot was working the high hat in time with the music and my right was pressing down the pedal as if a jump over a yawning chasm was imminent.

My chest was gyrating like I was a stripper sporting double D’s and three months of back rent to pay.

Impossibly my hips were swaying like a cobra coming out of a wicker basket.

My head was thrashing up and down and side to side like I was the proud owner of hair down to my waist, a worn jean jacket and front row Slayer tickets.

I was hurtling through a residential area at over 80 mph, my car all but spewing flames out of the back.

I’ve been told a similar fervor grips those speaking in tongues or attending a rave on acid but I defy any of those lucky souls to match the intensity of my feeling stronger every day.

The problem, and why you might put this in the ‘Good Advice’ file, is that I was a much younger man when this last happened. Now, at my current ambiguously-advanced age, I was no longer able to handle the seven G’s I was pulling with every chorus sung by madman Peter Cetera. I was getting dangerously dizzy… but I was incapable of stopping, my body all but spewing flames out of the back.

I wouldn’t stop shaking and dancing and exulting. I was in the grips of something much larger and much dumber than man was wired to handle.

With only a few verses left I crested a small hill and felt all four wheels leave the Earth. I returned with a jarring thud that sent shrieking school children fleeing terrified into their houses to report the encounter with pure evil to their disbelieving parents and, feeling consciousness slipping away, I began to make peace with my swiftly-approaching mortality.

The words “You know I’m alright now”, sung by a chorus of demons, droning comfortingly in my ears and making it alright now.

Knowing I had only to hold on for a few more seconds I kicked it up a notch and stopped paying any attention whatsoever to the road in front of me. I was going to bring this motherfucking song home big. I was only a blur in the front seat if you could even make an argument that I was still truly there.

I had not taken a gulp of air since the three and half minute mark and my lungs burned but considering everything in my body was burning it was only after the last refrains of the song had died down did I realize how oxygen-deprived I had become.

“Air is for the weak! Hail Satan!” I was able to get out through clenched teeth.

If I have to tell you to be blasting the song in the background as you read this I’m telling you right now we’re not going to get along.

If later this summer Feelin’ Stronger Every Day comes on the radio as you’re driving along minding your own business and you choose to ignore my warning and crank it up anyway… well, I think we’re going to get along fine.