My theory on ADD.

As you know if you've spoken to me for a few minutes in person, I have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder, not to be confused with ADHD). It's more of an inconvenience than a disability, in my case. I don't suffer from it, and I don't compare it to any other learning disability. I'd like to preface this by saying I am not complaining, and I think that ADD is preferable to any other learning disability, and my heart goes out to the sufferers of autism, Down's syndrome, and other disabilities.

Now, my theory.

Many researchers suggest that having your baby listen to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and other classical music will subliminally train their brain and make them "smarter" (read: better adjusted to school learning). But what kind of music was I subjected to as a kid?

Country.

It makes perfect sense. Country is the exact polar opposite of classical. Classical is refined, and country is about dogs, divorce, and pickup trucks. Classical is for reading to, and country is fer square dancin'. Classical makes your baby smarter, and country destroys them from the inside.

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. Whereas classical music is complex and interesting (causing babies to focus on it and learn to perform single tasks carefully from an early age), country music is so Goddamn horrible that it trains your brain to look for distractions. That's why instead of reading my physics homework, I'm staring out the window trying to figure out out what it says on someone's shirt, as my fingers tap a random, repetitive beat on the table, my brain thinks about that one TV show I used to watch when I was seven, and I realize that the floor looks a lot like a maze from the right angle. It's a Darwinian survival device created by the human brain to deal with excruciating, mind-bending pain.

It also explains why my brain doesn't remember anything not directly related to my immediate survival. Have you ever had the lyrics to a country song stuck in your head? Like, not just the one horrible, horrible guitar that the entire industry seems to share, but the actual lyrics?

For example.

"XXL"

by Keith Anderson

"Country cuties in Texas, string bikinis in Florida;
Barbie dolls drivin' Lexus' out in California:
A skinny little pretty boy ain't what they wanna hold.
They want a real man with meat on his bones.
I'll yank their yankees, ring their southern bells:
They say: "Ooh, brrr, we love a double XL. "

If Keith Anderson's make-believe world where sane women with decent vision and not at gunpoint want to even consider rubbing their dirty parts all over his beer belly doesn't disturb you, then I don't even want to consider what does.