I woke up this morning with this ancient They Might Be Giants song burning a hole in my skull.

I thought it would make for better (and funnier!) reading, if I would edit it a bit, and then just turn it into a miniature short story.

A woman came up to me and said, “I’d like to poison your mind with wrong ideas that appeal to you, though I am not unkind.” She looked at me; I looked at something written across her scalp, and these are the words that it faintly said, as I tried to call for help:

“There’s only one thing that I know how to do well, and I’ve often been told that you only can do what you know how to do well, and thats be you. Be what you’re like. Be like yourself. And so I’m having a wonderful time, but I’d rather be whistling in the dark.”

A man came up to me and said, “I’d like to change your mind by hitting it with a rock, though I am not unkind.” We laughed at his little joke, and then I happily walked away and hit my head on the wall of the jail, where the two of us live today.

There’s only one thing that I like, and that is whistling in the dark.

Hilarious. If I was any kind of graphic designer, I’d have found a picture of a woman with a shaved head, and Photoshopped that quote around her scalp in Gothic calligraphy. (I know, I know, ‘photoshopped’ isn’t a real verb! It’s called artistic license.) Perhaps that kind of picture manipulation is a skill that you have, and you’d like to take on this little project. Perhaps you’re a tattoo artist, and you will one day be lucky enough to find some woman with a shaved head who would like to have “There’s only one thing I know how to do well. . .”, et cetera, emblazoned on her head forever. You just never know.

After all this, of course, I wanted to know what the phrase ‘whistling in the dark’ really means. A quick search showed that it means “confident that something good will happen when it is not at all likely.”

Hunh.

What a strange morning this is already turning out to be. And now it’s time to eat breakfast and pack for my trip to Seattle.

Speaking of which, through a beautiful example of irony, my brother and his family, who live in Seattle–and whose house I’m staying at–will be in Portland this weekend for a little getaway, so that means I’m going to be up in their town while they’re down here in my town at the same time.

Praise the Lord for the gift of laughter.