The wheels on the bus

This morning I woke up on the fifth floor in San Jose. I looked out the window to a plaza below which was hosting a kids' concert. The grass was pocked with strollers and a band was rocking out.

To The Wheels On the Bus. Yeah. Go Round and Round. Exactly.

As if I don't already spend approximately 100% of every day trying not to get songs stuck in my head.

An hour later, after showering and chugging down a cup of bad hotel room coffee, I walked across the plaza for the real shit: Starbucks.

(ps If I knew a good local independently-owned organic fair trade cooperative that brewed coffee strong enough to melt my stomach lining, I'd go there. In lieu of that, helloooo evil megalithic corporation).

I passed the stage where the musicians were breaking down their equipment. A CD was blasting through the PA and I caught the line:

"I like to eat, eat, eat, eeples eend beneenees..."

And I fucking started SINGING ALONG.

Which begs two questions. Why? And perhaps more importantly, How?

Obviously, it's catchy. The song is all about learning vowels and it sings on the subject of eating apples and bananas while teaching the different vowel sounds. I wandered through during E.

If I'd passed by a few minutes earlier I might have been schooled in U (uuples and bunuunuuus) or in I (iiples and biniiniis).

Annoying. Or so I thought, until I starting singing AKA betraying myself.

See, back in December and then again in March and May, I drove around London with Joanna Hudson and her two-year-old, Alfie. In order to keep Alfie busy in the car seat, Joanna would play a music CD.

The CD was American and Joanna would say to Alfie, "Jessica sounds like the lady on the radio, doesn't she?"

And we'd play the songs, supposedly to keep Alfie from screaming his head off, though I had my doubts after Joanna got ALL EXCITED before one of the tracks came on and said, "Ooh, this is my favorite one!"

"Would you listen to yourself?" I said.

Joanna knew exactly what I meant. The girl who'd stomped into my house in the early 90s in her Doc Martens, all authoritative on raving and the Stone Roses and Oasis and the Charlatans UK, was getting off on track 3 of the toddler mix.

I continued making fun of her and she said something like, "Don't you dare write about this!" She may have mentioned something about ruining her reputation. I sadly promised not to but that was months ago. Our contract expired yesterday.

In Starbucks, I navigated past a double stroller and a child with a muffin crumbling out of his fingers. I ordered my large coffee and was pouring half and half and stirring when I thought, "None of us are immune. We are all in danger."

I'd made relentless fun of Joanna back then but today I eepled and beneeneed my ass off. Furthermore, after ten days in the Hudson home, I'd started talking like Alfie.

"Are you ready for dinner?" Joanna would ask.

"Yeah, I'm hongee," I'd say.

I started calling the remote the "ganny telly" (don't ask) and I was psyched when Alfie decided to watch Nemo instead of Bob the Builder because I was kind of into Nemo, too.

So? Yeah. Maybe you haven't heard but the wheels on the bus go round and round and it's awesome.