That Song Makes Me Sick

I am an eclectic person, particularly when it comes to music. If I use the "shuffle" feature on my iPod, I have to be careful who can hear it, because I can easiliy slip from Tim McGraw to Snoop, back to Billy Joel and then something from System of a Down. (SOAD is definately not work apropriate!)

But on Sunday afternoon as we were driving home in the snow I had a surreal experience. I heard a song that made me sick to my stomach. I literally felt like I was going to throw up. Not a good feeling on a snowy Sunday afternoon.

The song was "Carlene" by Phil Vassar. The song was released in early 2000, and really is a song that I have enjoyed for many years. One of my closest friends is named Charlene, so we have always changed the words just a little.

So why would such a nice song make me sick? Mold. Lots of mold.

When I first bought the CD that has the song "Carlene" I just just been placed into a new building for the business storage company that I worked for. This were so disorganized that we literally shipped 2,000 boxes to a rented warehouse to be sorted and labeled. My job was to do the sorting and labeling. Alone. I worked in that building for four days a week, and worked one day a week at the main office/warehouse.

The company (which I assume is still around) is an Archiving facility. Your business would send non-urgent, but still necessary-to-keep files to our facility. We store it, for a monthly fee, and will deliver your box(es) to you in 24 hours, for a second fee. There was availability of 1 hour and 2 hour delivery, but it was much more expensive, and really only utilized by law firms.

There were some pretty cool companies that used the company to store their stuff. Two big law firms downtown stored thousands of boxes, but they were boring. No need to catalog their stuff, they had staff to do that for them. I did get to catalog x-rays and some other random files, though.

One of the storing companies was the Recording Industry Association (RIAA). They didn't store much, but one day my brother found an original of the Gold Record presented to Bob Marley for one of his records! Pretty cool.

Anyway - the building they stuck me in was disgusting. I assume that the smell was just mold, but it would not come off of my clothes no matter how many times they were washed, and I had to shower as soon as I got home every day, or I could not stand to be around myself. I only wore certain clothes there, and threw them out as soon as I left the company.

I don't know if it was a contributing factor, but just before I got the building that was my own was when I had my Kidney Disease diagnosis. It sure made the decision to leave six months later easier!

When I heard that song on the radio Sunday, it didn't just bring back the mental images of that time in my life, it also brought back to me that nausiating smell/taste in my mouth, and I really did want to throw up.

That's such a waste of a really good song.

Are there songs that you know that bring back other senses for you?