3/3: Where's My Thing?

Some songs evoke Pavlovian responses, even decades later.

School kids have to wake up at ridiculous hours nowadays, but back in the 1990’s, high schoolers used to have the luxury of waking up at a decent hour, something in the ballpark of 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning.

But not me.

Me, I went to a high school about two hours’ commute from my house, which meant I needed to wake by 5:45 AM, at the latest. It wasn’t so bad once you got used to it, I suppose, and in any case I didn’t know any differently, so I dutifully dragged my ass out of bed every morning and didn’t realize I could even complain about it until I became a working adult.

In any case, 5:45 AM is when the programming switched over on DC 101 from the late-night DJ to Elliott in the Morning, the morning radio shock-jock. Before he’d leave, the late-night DJ (I wish I remembered his name!) would play the opening few measures of “Where’s My Thing?” as a way to wake the DC metro area up from its slumber.

So every morning I’d wake up to that ratta-tat-tat-TAT-rat-ta-tah, like a breaking news alert. “Where’s My Thing?” became my “companion unobtrusive,” so ingrained in my morning routine that when a substitute DJ didn’t play the song, my whole day would feel off somehow.

Even now it evokes a Pavlovian response in me. Every time I hear those opening notes, I’m taken back to those pitch-black mornings, wiping the night from my sleep-crusted eyes, ready to stumble out of bed, grab a bowl of cereal, and start a new day.