Small Gift

Here's a bit of a cop-out for today's essay, but with Halloween now gone, Christmas has invaded. Might as well jump on the bandwagon lest get run over by it. 

A clear plastic cassette found while cleaning out the trunk of my Buick holds a hidden treasure discovered back when I was sixteen. ‘Assassination on X-mas Eve,’ a song from the Archers of Loaf, recorded off of the few times it was played on the local ‘alternative’ station, 99.9 fm. Before 1998 when Korn took over, the station played a wide variety of one-hit alternative acts and bizarre cuts from obscure bands miles away from the mainstream.

'Assassination on X-mas eve' was the only song that 99.9 played by the Archers of Loaf, despite breaking through with 'Web Out Front.' I wanted to hear more of them so I called in requests. When all they had was that one song, I started to call for the song throughout the year. Little success came from that, with no one wanting to play a song with ‘X-mas’ in the title during June. When during the next December, an advanced warning allowed me to hit the RECORD button on my stereo at the right moment to capture the radio version of the song. It was a small gift for that Christmas.

Coming across the only album by the band at the FYE, one never replaced after I shelled out the 11.99 price tag for it, was a bit of luck. The independent record store didn’t have any Archers. Why did the FYE have not just one album, but the one with the exact song I would call in for whenever the urge to harass the local DJs popped up? Moments like this allow a man to believe in Santa Claus for a minute or so.