My mind tends to wander off into strange places while I drive to and from work. Here is the latest of the ramblings:

So I was driving home from work last night, flipping stations in my car, when I happened upon the song “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” The plot of the story goes like this: the devil decides to try and steal a soul from Johnnie, a fiddle player. He says to Johnnie that if he can play fiddle better than the devil, that Johnnie would get a gold fiddle. But if the devil won, then he’d get Johnnie’s soul. So anyway, as I was listening to this song, I started wondering why anyone would want a gold fiddle in the first place. You couldn’t play it—it would be much too heavy and the acoustics would be horrid. I suppose you could sell it at the going price of gold, but is that really worth risking your soul over?

So I began to wonder about this. I am certainly not immune to materialism—my brand-new SUV and latest book-buying frenzy can attest to that. But is there really anything I would risk my immortal soul for? I really can’t think of anything. And then I got to thinking about the motivation for the contest—the ego wants to be the best, the thrill of the competition, etc. So I suppose the whole “I could lose my soul over this” thought could have gotten pushed to the back of Johnnie’s mind. He could have pictured himself hanging out with his buddies at the local bar, telling the story of how he beat the devil in a fiddling contest. Of course, the story would become more elaborate after a few beers…but I digress.

I can’t imagine that the devil would be much of a fiddle player anyway, what with his main job of stealing souls, keeping the damned in order, and wreaking havoc on the world. So Johnnie probably figured he wouldn’t have a problem winning the contest, risk or no risk.

To be quite honest, though I rather liked the devil’s fiddling better than Johnnie’s. Is that a sin? I don’t know. But I don’t know that much about fiddle playing, either. Of course, I also thought the devil cheated, since he had a whole chorus of demons accompanying him, and Johnnie was all alone. But I suppose you would have to expect that sort of behavior from the devil anyway.

Johnnie won the contest, by the way.

I got home from work last night and noticed that I had a faded number “4” written on my left hand, where I usually write things that I need to remember if they’re especially important or I have misplaced my notebook. Other writings that have ended up on my hand include “EKG with next lab draw,” various phone numbers, a patient’s vital signs if it's an emergency and I have to call the doctor right away. “Dinner!” frequently appears on my hand, as I often have to call the doctors to remind them to order food for patients once they have gotten back from procedures and operations.

I’m not the only one who does stuff like this. I once watched a doctor explain a procedure to a patient while sketching said procedure on the patient’s bedsheet. But anyway, I have no idea where the number 4 on my hand came from.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to find this red mark on the edge of my earlobe. It wasn’t irritated, which eliminated an accidental scratch from a cat, and I had no memory of any kind of earlobe-related accidents recently. So I finally concluded that the aliens brought me up to the mothership and tagged me for further study. The earlobe mark faded after a few days but my mysterious number 4 got me wondering about it again. Maybe I’m “Human Subject Number Four,” nicknamed some unpronounceable (to humans) but endearing (to the aliens) name for whatever the alien equivalent of a National Geographic Special is.

Or maybe I’ve just been watching too many late-night reruns of “The X Files.”