A few nights ago, my wife and I hitched up the wagons and headed in to the big city to pick up the in-laws at the airport. On the way back, she was complaining about the lack of crappy 80s hair metal on my iPod. We started naming off as many crappy 80s hair metal bands and their crappy songs as we could. After a while, I had one song painfully stuck in my head: Kix’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes.” We dropped off her parents. As we approached our own house, I said, “That stupid song is playing at home right this very moment.” As soon as I walked in the door, I turned on the TV and looked for the appropriate channel.

The screeching of “Don’t Close Your Eyes” immediately sounded through the living room. On the one hand, it was somehow like victory. On the other hand, it sort of bugged me. I can readily see how some people would look at this as something more than a funny coincidence. In this case, it was something of no consequence whatsoever. If it had been some “intuition” of great consequence, this sort of thing could make someone a believer in the paranormal. Worse, it could reinforce the already deluded. Of course, if I had the time, I could run through the stats: How many iconic songs are there in each little niche genre? How are the playlists made for those music channels on DirecTV? Would we still call it a “hit” if it had come up as the next song, rather than the first? I think the combination of these could give us a double digit percentage probability.

It all comes down to one truth, though.

Weird stuff happens.