I have a confession: I’m not really big on shopping at the grocery store.
I know, I know. Don’t know why, but it’s just not one of my favorite things to do. But since we have to eat, I sometimes must foray into the local market to pick up vittles.
Recently, though, I noticed that I wasn’t too miserable while in the produce aisle. Then I realized that I had been singing to myself.
“Modern love walks beside me…”
Oh. My. God. I was just singing “Modern Love” by David Bowie.
I thought that perhaps I could have just had the song in my head – you all know how that happens. You hear a song days before, and then you catch yourself singing it days later.
But no…my worst fears had come to pass. The song was playing on the store’s sound system!
Clunk…See, it upset me so much all over again that I just fainted while writing this.
I mean, how could David Bowie be the song of choice at my local grocery store! This song was cool! It should be playing in the car on my radio when I’m driving around on a warm spring day with the windows open and the music blasting.
That’s when I realized that this song is about 28 years old.
Again, I say: Oh. My. God…
I remember when I was practicing driving. On a Saturday, I got back home to my mom’s house after driving around with the instructor for two of the six hours that I was required to scare the pants off him in order to be able to take the test for my driver’s license. I walked into the house and put on the TV. There was David Bowie in all his glory singing his latest hit “Modern Love” on some afternoon video show (I lived in Baltimore City, and we didn’t have cable at that time – yeah, I know; hard to believe.)
And here was the same rockin’ song playing in the grocery store.
THE GROCERY STORE!!!!
How could this be? How could I be old enough for the store to be playing music that would make me happy so that I would presumably buy more? I could understand playing “oldies,” but the rock god also known as Ziggy Stardust? Has the world gone mad?
Then I realized…at 28 years old, this song could be considered an oldie.
I think that this is the time about which I started to hyperventilate. I called my husband. “Guess what’s playing in the grocery store?” I sputtered.
“Muzak?” he quipped.
Okay, now THAT would have truly been my worst fear realized – David Bowie’s “Modern Love,” the Muzak version. I began to break into a cold sweat.
“No!” I shouted. “It’s David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love!’”
“But that’s great! You love that song!” he answered.
Oh the humanity. How could my spouse, my love, my partner in crime, just not understand this horrible weight that the store had put upon me. I was old.
Old, old, old…
“Maybe it was a mistake,” he said. “See what the next song is.”
I waited. It came on.
The next song played was “Whip It” by Devo.
I’m never going grocery shopping again…
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not dreading the day that all the songs of her teenage years have begun playing at the dry cleaners, the mechanics’ shop, and while she’s on hold, writes Wojo’s World™ from her home office in Baltimore.