Finding Sharona

“Free will. It’s like butterfly wings: once touched, they never get off the ground. No, I only set the stage, you pull your own strings.”

 – John Milton, The Devil’s Advocate.

 

            “Mate, did you get their number before we were kicked out last night?” Ed said to me, his opening gambit this morning. “Stay, while you’re at it, how did we get home last night, and, finally, why do I have a leaf in my hair?”

            “No; the bus; and… I’ve no idea, maybe you went out sleepwalking.”

            “Always the one with the boring answers eh? I’ll admit it, the leaf was just for effect, I picked it up from the windowsill. The question: what next?”

            “I’m going back to bed,” I said, and I did.

 

*

 

            I woke up a few hours later to the sound of Ed bursting through my door.

            “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “We’re going to find Sharona!”

            “What?”

            “That was the last song last night – My Sharona. We’re going to go find her.”

            “How? Who is she?”

            “Not she, exactly, just a Sharona. We’ll search MySpace and locate one. It’s destiny mate, romance and fate. What’s to think about? Anything has to be better than living your current pathetic single humiliating life.”

            “Thanks for that,” I said. “I’m not convinced,” I said. But I got out of bed and went to the computer with him.

            We looked up My Sharona on Google first and were amazed to discover that The Knack wrote their song about a real girl called Sharona. Moreover, the Sharona, Sharona Alperin, is still very much alive and kicking. Incredibly she’s capitalised on the situation and started a real estate company for rich professionals and stars. Her website even mentions the effect of the song on her life! Smart girl.

            We loaded up MySpace and searched simply for ‘Sharona’. In England there were two pages of hits. We quickly established that these were completely unacceptable. They were either too old, too young or just plain revoltingly ugly. Ed had the predictable urge to require my attendance to one of the totally inappropriate options but I reminded him of his selling stance of ‘destiny and romance’. He allowed my objection and we turned to America, reasoning that the Sharona population there would be rather more extensive. We were right. There were 46 pages of them. We spent some time going through them and eliminating possibilities. Eventually we located two close together in New Orleans. One of them had very scant details on her site, but seemed interesting, despite the lack of a picture. The second was just plain hot.

            “Alright,” said Ed, “that’s that sorted then. When do we leave?”