By Any Means Necessary (When Skill is Not an Option)

It was a brutal game of drought-fried mini golf. My scorecard was filling up with laughably high numbers when my attention turned to the Top 40 crackling over the weather- and fidelity-proof speakers. Was this dreck affecting my game? I wanted to win. 

The speakers began blaring music from the 80s, and more paranoid thoughts sprouted. It was making me lose. Those minigolf people are playing 80s music to taunt me. They're calling me old. 


Then I had a stroke. Of genius--I'm not that old. Maybe what I needed wasn't skill (actually, that would have helped), but my very own corrosive soundtrack to demoralize my opponent. I'd play innocent-seeming music that would waft its way into the subconscious, and defeat the enemy from within. 

Because it would kill me to lose to the 10 year old I was playing.

A truly successful playlist, I reasoned--or hallucinated, I'm not sure which: it was very hot--a truly devious playlist should conjure an endless series of mis-hits; physics-defying bad luck; deflating searches for golf balls; and the inevitability of defeat. My Golf Playlist (of Doom) would sound like this:  

 

  1. Cups/You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone -  Anna Kendrick
  2. Walk 500 Miles - The Proclaimers
  3. Heartache Tonight - The Eagles
  4. The Bitterest Pill - The Jam
  5. Where Are U Now - Skrillex & Diplo With Justin Bieber
  6. Over the Hills and Far Away - Led Zeppelin
  7. Defying Gravity - Idina Menzel 
  8. Crying, Waiting, Hoping - The Beatles
  9. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
  10. You Can’t Always Get What You Want - Rolling Stones
  11. Story of My Life - One Direction
  12. Best Thing I Never Had - Beyonce
  13. I'm a Loser-The Beatles
  14. I Fall to Pieces - Patsy Cline
  15. I Swear - All-4-One
  16. Help - The Beatles
  17. Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
  18. Desperado - The Eagles
  19. Good Riddance - Green Day
  20. I Knew You were Trouble - Taylor Swift
  21. Here, There, and Everywhere - The Beatles
It's possible the Beatles played a lot of golf. They had the right mindset.