My junior year of college I worked as a spy. At the age of 21, I liked to refer to myself as The Youngest Spy in the World. There was no real way of knowing if this was true.
There was no Google. There were no blogs. This was 1989. Before the Internet. Before hostesses stopped asking “Smoking or non?” and before toothbrushes started looking like sneakers. My line of espionage was in the music industry. I worked for ASCAP helping them shut down establishments that refused to pay their annual licensing fees. So what kind of establishments try to get away without paying such fees? Strip joints, wouldn’t you know. I bring this up because it was one of the few jobs I’ve held in my life wherein I didn’t get the Sunday blues. You know the blues I’m talking about—especially on a Sunday, like tonight before the first day back in at least a very long weekend, if not a couple weeks. It’s an extra special kind of blues; maybe something like the Memphis Blues—an empty, hollow kinda blues. It’s Sonny Boy Williamson on a beat-up harmonica. Getting paid to frequent topless bars while recording the songs played over the stereo with a Dictaphone in my coat pocket was definitely one job that stood up to the Sunday blues, as you might imagine (hey, I was 21… whaddaya want?). But then there’s also this: tonight I don’t have the blues either. Why? Because I’m going into the office late tomorrow. Why? Because my son Jack starts preschool tomorrow and all the parents are invited. So tonight, I’m the opposite of blue; I’m pulsating orange. I’m C+C Music Factory's “Gonna Make You Sweat.” Everything will be new for him. Not just a new decade and a new week. No, tomorrow will be a completely new life. He’ll be on his way down a new path of learning, of growing, up, down, every which way. What could be more exciting than experiencing this through the soul of a 2 1/2-year old? Well, other than Google and blogs, of course. Photo courtesy of Flickr user mab, used under Creative Commons license. ------------------------------------------About the author: David K. Israel is a founding blogger at Mental Floss. He is also half of the warped mind behind the brand new site twaggies.com. You can find him on Twitter at @resila.
