You come home. I’m nowhere to be found. The floorboards shake; you can hear “Busted” from Phineas and Ferb playing across the apartment. Rose petals line the entryway; Trader Joe’s finest candles sit heavy on the air. As the wall of scent hits you, so does the realization: it’s Thursday. You know what that means.
We’re going to pound town, baby.
I’ve popped open the champagne. I’ve dimmed the lights. “Busted” from Phineas and Ferb is still setting the mood, somehow. The toothpaste-stained kisses tattoo your body and cool you like a menthol cough drop while the candles warm you. Thoughts float through your mind like clouds in an open sky. Why can I feel the candles’ warmth? Why are there so many candles? How much of his monthly budget does he spend on candles? Don’t worry though. I put your mind at ease. It doesn’t matter. They’re here to set the mood for you.
The music stays the same. “Busted.” It’s been playing for the past 20 minutes. You might think that it’s on loop but it’s actually not. If you don’t have enough songs on a playlist, sometimes Spotify will try to insert its own to keep things interesting. I don’t vibe with that, at least not when I’m trying to set the mood. It’s easier to put the same song on the playlist over and over again. That way our heartbeats can sync to the shitty synthesizers and Ashley Tisdale’s voice uninterrupted.
“Don’t think about the song. Just listen. Just feel.” Fortunately, you do. The song becomes a mantra, slowly echoing in your mind through the wee hours of the morning. The dozens of candles have shrunk down to the last drops of wax around their wicks. Just before dawn breaks through, we switch to a different tune: the Moon Theme from 1989’s Ducktales NES video game.