Monday, February 6, 2017

Ask and Ye Shall (More Quickly) Receive

Ah, the "ask and ye shall receive" synchronicity. One of my favorite varieties -- because, after all, who doesn't like receiving what they've asked-for?

These days, however, I've experienced a trend in these sort of incidents: they're speeding up. That is, I'm receiving faster.

* * *

 Let's begin with an example of a traditional, delayed, "normal" a-and-r-type synchro (as if anything of the sort can ever feel normal ...).

It happened this past December, right around Christmas time, beginning with a random, years-old copy of Rolling Stone. In one of the magazine's articles, it mentioned solitary confinement and the psychological effects it often has on prisoners. Hmm, wouldn't mind learning more on that subject, I thought.

Jump forward a couple days, when I was reading a second random copy of Rolling Stone, also several years old (but a year or two newer than the first). In this one, I came across a second article: about solitary confinement and the psychological effects it often has on prisoners. Except, this one was devoted fully to the subject, going at it in-depth -- and, thus, fully satisfying the explicit request I'd made just days previous.

In a touch of irony, the second article even mentioned how, in a previous issue of Rolling Stone, the topic of solitary confinement had been touched on in an unrelated piece. (And, of course, my selecting these two particular issues, and my receiving them in the first place, was entirely random, with each pulled blindly out of a thick stack in an enclosed drawer -- that is, with no way that I could've been influenced in my selections, even subconsciously.)

* * *

Interesting? Yes. But, apparently, waiting a few days for my "receipt" is too long, as a couple recent incidents demonstrate.

Take the one that occurred on February 3rd of this year, for instance.

As I drove up to a store, I was rocking out to "Girls, Girls, Girls," the classic Crue song, after it had cropped up unexpectedly on the radio. However, as much as I was enjoying myself, I was short on time and so had to leave the car before the song could finish, therefore depriving myself of its last leg (including the guitar solo and its top-octave peak).

Man, wish I could hear the rest of that, I thought as I killed the engine and stepped from the car.

I was only gone fifteen minutes, but, of course, the song was finished long before. However, as I keyed my car, I was startled to hear the unmistakable scratch of Mick Mars's guitar -- playing the solo of "Girls, Girls, Girls." As it were, the music was the backing track of an advertisement (for a strip club, hence the choice of song).

And, thus, I Received the last leg of "Girls, Girls, Girls," almost exactly where it had left off from before.

* * *

But, the Receiving would speed up even more.

Case in point: another incident involving a classic-rock song on the radio, occurring just the day after that of the "Girls, Girls, Girls."

I was cruising down the road, again grooving on some particularly agreeable guitar-rock that had come on at just the right time. This song, however, I didn't recognize, other than the fact that it sounded suspiciously like Journey.

Wonder who that is, I thought in between fits of air guitar. Sounds sorta like Journey.

Approximately two seconds later, I stopped at a red light, with a car in front of me -- a car with a big, prominent emblem reading "JOURNEY," arriving before the word had time to leave my mind. It created something of an echo effect, which I can only describe as utterly surreal.


(And, yes, it was indeed a Journey song, "Stone in Love," as confirmed later when I looked up the lyrics.)

If only Amazon could fulfill requests so quickly.

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