Find Inner Peace with Kid Rock

Every once in awhile on the proverbial road of life (I believe it’s Stumbo Road, but I may be mistaken), I run across people, who are actual superhuman robots from Hell, who claim to thrive on stress. "Bring it on," they say, brushing their beringed fingers over their black power suits. "The more stress the better! I eat stress for breakfast!"

If you see any of these people, I highly suggest running away before their heads explode.

Because I don’t know about you all, but my main reaction to even the slightest bit of stress is to curl up under a piece of heavy furniture until I’m too old and feeble to do anything stressful at all, including going to the bathroom by myself.

And lately, I’ve been experiencing more stress than I can handle. Between my classes ("For Thursday, I’d like a fifteen page paper on the effects of dairy farming on the English of Surrey and Worcestershire, including no less than a page on the specific results of the Stinky Cheese Act of 1676"), my three jobs, and my various committees and organizations, I am reaching a stress level never before experienced by any sane human. Or at least any sane creative writing major whose primary source of stress before this semester was how I was going to get out of Juba-Juba’s belly in "Zelda: Ocarina of Time."

Now, I realize that there are more stressful things than balancing work, school and extracurriculars, but I have no idea what they are, and I refuse to acknowledge them, because they would make my problems look petty and small.

All I know is that I am stressed out. And it’s not that usual, headache-y, nauseous feeling that usually comes to mind when you think of being stressed out. This is more like a something-grabbed-my-insides-and-washed-them-in-mayonnaise-and-wadded-them-up-and-crammed-them-up-my-nose sort of feeling.

I’ve tried everything I could think of to unstress myself, too, to no avail. I went out for an evening of scintillating conversation and grease choked lard at Denny’s with my next door neighbors Katie and Brandi, only to be hit on by a weirdo in leather pants with zippers all over them, who told us he could take us to his "cabin by the lake." Seeing as how there is no lake around here, and as a general rule we don’t go anywhere with people who have obviously stolen clothing from Michael Jackson’s closet, we chose instead to laugh uncontrollably, sending a fist-sized piece of lard into my pancreas, where it will no doubt be causing more stress in the future.

I even tried those relaxation tapes, the ones that are supposed to sound like a gentle rain, but instead sound like someone saying "get up and do some more work, you damn dirty ape!" over and over again. Needless to say, I will be getting my money back.

Earlier this week, though, I think I came up with the ultimate scientific method of stress reduction: listening to the song "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock as loud as you can while jumping around like an idiot.

I realize that there are some serious side effects to such a procedure, such as ear bleeding and a general loss of brain cells. But there’s just something relaxing about a grown man such a Kid Rock, classically trained in opera, I’m sure, yelling, and I quote: "bawitdaba a dang de dang ditty ditty ditty said the boogie said up jump the boogie." I’m not quite sure what it is. But it’s better than Valium.

(A note to grown-ups: feel free to substitute the song "Blue Moon" by the Marcels, which has a very similar refrain, but will brand you as being quite lame with your children.)

If you’re as stressed out as me, I suggest you give it a try. And if you’re not, please go away to a fiery, stink-bug infested place, never to return. And write me a paper on the English dairy crisis while you’re there.