Milky, milky cocoa…
(This post was originally posted to Adam’s MySpace page, but he thought it should live here too.)
“What you gonna do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?”
Eyes crusty with sleep, with these words and the innane yet infectious beats that bounce beneath them, I am ripped from the warm, cocoon comfortability of sleep and thrust into the stark 7 AM reality of yet another day.
“I’m a get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump. “
See, Jess and I have developed this innane and yet incredibly effective method of combatting the strong trait of chronic oversleeping we share- we tune our clock radio to the most obnoxious top 40 pop radio station we can find and we turn it up as high as it will go. Thus far, we’ve found it around 93 percent effective in our battery of rigorous clinical trials.
“My lovely little lumps,”
I thought myself pretty clever when we bought an alarm clock with a CD shortly after we were married. The idea was, “We’ll wake up to music we love- we’ll just pop right up in a great mood. It’ll work like magic!”
“Check it outs…
I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these iceies.”
And it did. I worked just like a sleeping potion is what it did. Music we like sometimes kept us lying there listening, and surrounded by such nice sounds we found even more of reasons not to brave the flight of stairs to the bathroom with its cold, tile floor. Toward the end of this little experiment, we also found music we like had a crafty way of working its way into our dreams instead of working us out of them.
“My love, my love, my love, my love
You love my lady lumps,
My hump, my hump, my hump,
My humps they got you,
She’s got me spending.”
We also tried country, which worked fine for a while. The misogynous humor and good ol’ boy right wing talk from DJs had the occasional benefit of getting us riled up enough to pry us from the sheets at times, but soon found the music on the whole too soothing, and the prevalence of narrative engaged our minds just enough to keep us in bed for that tenuous and crucial moment it takes for the mind to plummet back into the deep depths of slumber.
“Oooo) Spendin’ all your money on me and spendin’ time on me.
She’s got me spendin’.
(Oooo) Spendin’ all your money on me,(uh) on me, on me”
Seeing as Nashville radio offers really only five options: NPR, college radio, oldies, country and pop, and, considering that we actually enjoy the first three flavors, we were left with only one alternative- the vacuuous, predictable and lowest-common-denominator sounds of Top 40 radio.
“What u gon’ do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I’m a make, make, make, make you scream
Make u scream, make you scream.”
And on that first morning, waking up to the whiney, over-digitized voice of Brittney belting out “Toxic,” I bolted upright and felt like Archimedes in his bathtub. “Eureka!” We had found the holy grail of morning reverie.
“Cause of my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps, check it out!”
Little did we know what a powerful force we were messing with. The lyrics were predictable and the music uninventive for the most part, sure, but these tracks are not haphazard. They are calculated, masterfully manufactured tools of consumer manipulation backed by enormous research and funding and masterminded by devious producers bent on widespread mind control. We learned that these seemingly dopey ditties are highly infectious mind germs that subtly invade deeply into the mind and are next to impossible to extract. The more idiotic and ridiculous the refrain, the greater their power to compel us to hum them throughout our day.
“I met a girl down at the disco.
She said hey, hey, hey yea let’s go
I could be your baby, you can be my honey
Lets spend time not money.
and mix your milk wit my cocoa puff,”
Which brings us to the impetus for my writing this post- a warning and at the same time, a strange sort of homage to the reigning champion of pop aural viruses, the nefarious and masterful tune known simply as, “My Humps”.
“Milky, milky cocoa,
Mix your milk with my cocoa puff, milky, milky riiiiiiight”
The first time I heard it, I was right in that narrow envelope between sleep and waking when one becomes somewhat aware of external stimulus once again, but has not yet admitted it the actuality of it enough to open the eyes. The bouncing, high-pitched words filtered into my awareness and I immediately determined this must be some sort of satirical skit the radio station had put together, and I kept waiting for the punch line…but none came. The song finished, and I was left, wide awake, in a state of disgust and astonishment. I made my way out of the bed and into the shower when it happened. I found myself, unaware until it was happening, repeating the words,
“My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My lovely lady lumps
In the back and in the front”
No!!! This is horrible, this must stop. Now. I would settle my mind, clear it of all mention of humps, think of something else and then when my mind would wander for just a moment or two, it would reappear and I would find myself humming this inane melody, “M-hm, m-hm, m-hm…m-hm-m-hmm-hm.” All through the day. Writing emails. Filing papers. Driving. Eating dinner. Sliding back into bed. It was awful.
“They say I’m really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin’ a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin’ at my lump, lump.”
And just about every morning, at some point in the 7-7:30 AM rotation, we would hear the telltale Casio beats and “My Humps” would invade. And there was nothing we could do about it. We were powerless- it was either endure its tyranny over our mind space or else lose our jobs. So, “My Humps” has gotten the upper hand and infected us time and time again.
“U can look but you can’t touch it,
If u touch it I’m a start some drama,
You don’t want no drama,
No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama”
This morning was no different, and so I feel compelled to warn all of you who read this to beware in hopes that through this cathartic telling of my tale I can somehow diminish its power and perhaps save you as well. It is dangerous and should be extracted from the airwaves. All that being said, I am nonetheless fascinated by the power of this song and the evil genius it took to craft it. If you too have experienced this torment, I hope that reading this will give you some modicum of hope in the assurance that you are not alone.
“What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off this hump.”
Currently listening :
My Humps
By Black Eyed Peas
Release date: By 22 November, 2005
