All You Did Was Wreck My Bed, And in the Morning Kick Me in the Head

So I just spent the last hour strolling around DC listening to my i-pod on shuffle. It’s amazing to me that there are so many songs that I can pretty much totally forget about, and once I hear them again, they still manage to conjure up so many memories. I honestly think that is the best part of the shuffle feature on i-pods---hearing an old song can sometimes be like seeing an old friend. Well, today, I had that sort of experience. As I walked down 14th Street, an old Rod Stewart standard titled, “Maggie May” began playing in my ears. I can’t tell you the last time I heard this song, but instantly I was transported back to a pub I used to frequent in London. The pub (whose name is escaping me now, which shocks me, because I was there daily for a period of about 3 months) had this great jukebox filled with many of the British greats of Rock and Roll. Me and my buddies would get good and drunk, play these songs and have massive sing-alongs (usually towards the end of the night). Well, one of the songs that I would constantly play was “Maggie May”. In Fact, I played it so often that me and one of my girlfriends (who also happened to be one of the bartenders) made up a really silly interpretive dance to it. Well, one summer afternoon I was sitting at the bar chatting with my girlfriend, drinking a Pimms and Lemonade, when all of a sudden, I hear the opening notes to “Maggie May” come at me through the speakers. Wondering who shared my absurd love of Rod Stewart, I turned around and scanned the bar to find out who could have possibly made the selection. I found a very attractive guy named Darren, who had the same shaggy haircut that Rod Stewart once possessed and spoke in the same scratchy type voice. Anyway, Darren and I began talking and we discovered that not only did we share a love of Rod Stewart, but we also both enjoyed pints of Carlson and had immense intrigue for each others respective cultures. Darren and I spoke for the rest of the day, and he serenaded me, singing along with the jukebox to other Rod Stewart songs. It was at that moment that we drunkenly decided that we would enter in to a marriage of convenience. If we were to get married, I would become a citizen of Great Britain (and no longer need to obtain an illusive work-visa) and Darren would, in turn, become a citizen of the US, a place he had always dreamed of living. I woke up that next morning with a massive hangover and a cocktail napkin tied around my left ring-finger. As the days went on, what started out as a joke began to get much more serious. Everyday Darren and I would sit at the pub and make plans for the wedding. A date was set, a bridal party was picked out and regulars were coming up to the two of us and sharing their congratulations. I think we decided that we would marry on a Saturday, after the England Football Match. Well, the day approached quickly, and I still wasn’t 100% sure if this joke of ours had somehow actually turned in to the real deal (plus, I was already very hot and heavy with someone else). But, instead of taking the time to figure it out, me and a friend hopped on a plane to Cyprus the day the big event was supposed to occur. I never saw Darren after that, but I was told that he sat at that bar all day, supposedly waiting for me to show up. I really haven’t given much thought to the whole situation since, but today, just hearing “Maggie May” brought all of those memories back to me. I wonder if Darren ever did find someone else to sing Rod Stewart songs to...