TV Caesar, Mighty Mouse

"Hell-ooooo?"
"Heellll-ooohhh?"
"... Yes?"
"You almost home?"
"Uh, yeah. Uh, sort of. Not really."
"'S'about to start pourin'."
"Is it?"
"It looks like it. It's all cloudy and ominous-looking. You want me to come get you?"
"No I think it's fine. It's kind of windy but not raining yet."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'll uh, I'll be fine. I'll call you if you should come get me or something."
"OK."
"Alllrriiiiight?"
"ALRRIIIGGHT?"
"OK, bye."

Cut to two or three minutes later as I'm checking out my item at a darling little record/CD store in Manayunk, and the cashier all but begs me to put my shabby record in a plastic bag because he can see out the window behind me and he's noticed that it has just started pouring. In that case…

Cut to like ten minutes prior when I arrive inside the record/CD store, after ducking my head and shielding my eyes through a dusty, grimy wind and darkening sky, and am now standing in front of a flaky-looking Procol Harum record marked at just $3.00. Procol Harum? Why do I keep seeing this band?

And now we're back in time again, to like a month ago, when I'm looking through the notes on my phone and under the Music section, where I sometimes write down the names of bands/songs that I intend to listen to later but usually forget about, is that name: Procol Harum. There is nothing accompanying the name's text that might hint at why it was put there. As usual I can't remember why I put it there, but I assume it's important and so I add a Procol Harum song to my Spotify playlist. It's probably their most well-known song: "A Whiter Shade of Pale."

Maybe a few weeks later I'm hearing that song, "A Whiter Shade of Pale," in my car via my Spotify playlist. I somewhat enjoy but don't at all recognize the song or understand why I at some point found it so necessary to add Procol Harum to my Music list. But I forget about it and move on.

OK, keep up, we're now back a month or so later to when I'm leaving the record/CD store in Manayunk. It has of course started raining but I am stubborn and feeling empowered by my plastic bag, so I continue on my mile-ish walk back home. The rain's not all that bad.

I step into my apartment and my boyfriend has a towel waiting for me. I'm hurried; I take off my shoes and get changed and ignore the towel and bust out my new record. I awkwardly arrange it in the little record player thingie that I always struggle with for some reason, and get it going, and the record starts.

"Wow."
"What?"
"..."
"..."

OK now go back like two months, I don't know, I'm losing track of the timeline, but at some point not too long ago I'm in my mom's house and she's playing a CD that I've heard her listen to a million times and there's this particular song that I really love. The only lyrics from the song that I can remember are "Mighty Mouse" and a handful of tries over the years at searching for the song with those lyrics were not fruitful. Asking my mom about it did not work either. But here I am in her house now hearing it and I run to the CD player and look at the CD that is playing and it's Procol Harum's Grand Hotel. I type the note Procol Harum into my phone and assume that I will remember why I put it there.

Back in the present portion of this story, when I'm listening to the new-old record that I've found, and I can't even really speak because I'm so excited at finally recognizing the band and thus understanding why this weird name has come up several times in the past few months. It's not the same album that my mom had on a CD, this one is called Shine On Brightly, but it's definitely the same band, I recognize it now. I can't speak, I just keep staring at the record player much to the confusion of my boyfriend. 

Now with the band's name I can search for the "Mighty Mouse" song and sure enough I find it, and it's called "TV Caesar."