My Brain Is Full...

...of all sorts of worthless crap. Most submariners have pretty good memories -- but our heads get so full of things like casualty immediate actions and qual trivia that we have to get rid of stuff like birthdays of anyone outside of our immediate family in order to make room for it. For me, it seems even worse; my brain is so inundated with worthless trivia that it's a wonder I can remember where I parked my truck.

Today is Thanksgiving, so naturally my thoughts turn to Christmas; inevitably, I start thinking about Christmas carols. And not the normal Christmas carols, either -- that'd be fairly useful. No, instead I remember these parody Christmas carols that came out in Mad magazine back in late 1976. One example:

Sam and Roz Are Comin' To Town (to the tune of Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town)

You'd better give up,
On Christmas this year;
You haven't a chance
With relatives here;
Sam and Roz are coming to town

They're bringing their kids,
To add to your fun;
They're staying 10 days
You thought it was one;
Sam and Roz are coming to town

They'll monopolize your bathroom,
They'll destroy your solitude;
They will eat you out of house and home,
Then complain about the food.

Oh, there's only one way,
To save your Noel,
Just give them the house
And take a hotel.
Sam and Roz are coming to town.

Now, I haven't seen that magazine, or read those words, in almost 30 years, but I remember them perfectly. I figured that there must be other people so afflicted, so I went searching on the web to see if these poor souls had tried to exorcise their demons by putting the lyrics on-line. Lo and behold, I found someone who had put the lyrics up. I wasn't the only one! Interestingly, it's also on an official government web page for Prince Edward Island, with one line changed.

I tried some of the other songs I knew. "It Hangs Down From Our Chandelier" was another one I remembered word for word; therefore, I was able to know that this is essentially what was in Mad, and this version isn't. The "right" version:

"It hangs down from our chandelier;
We have no idea what it does.
Its shape is weird and
It drips with goo,
And lets off a high-sounding buzz.

It grows a couple of feet each day,
And wiggles with kind of a twitch.
We keep it 'cause it's a present from
A visiting uncle who's rich!"

(I remembered the last two lines as: "The only reason we keep it's 'cause, it's from a vis'ting uncle who's rich".)

"We Three Clods From Omaha Are": Found it on this message board.

"Oh, Little BankAmericard": Found here. This one kind of dates the songs; for those who don't remember BankAmericard, it became Visa about when this song came out.

"Wrap Your Gift With Fingers Agile": Same site; this one was at least rumored to have come from Mad magazine.

These examples I found were all either professionally collated sites, or people who remembered onesies-twosies. I was worried that I was the only one afflicted with having to remember them all, until I found this post in a message board (12th post down). I wasn't alone! Somehow, that made me feel better.

Now, if I could only get the litany out of my head that starts: "Feed station, Maneuvering, take manual-electric control of the port and starboard feed reg..."

Anybody seen my truck?