First of all, let me say that I think a shy four-year-old kid with separation anxiety is too young to start school. But my parents worked and it wasn’t up to me, so in 1990 I was enrolled in a daycare/preschool center. It was one of those places where kids play with other kids, eat bad food, and take naps on dirty, broken cots. Every morning I’d complain nonstop as I was showered, dressed, fed, and loaded into the backseat of my dad’s blue 1987 Chrysler LeBaron. And then the first few bars of his favorite song, “You Can Call Me Al,” would start: DAH-NAH-NAH-NAH! DAH-NAH-NAH-NAH!

This song’s intro featured the most obscene use of horns I’ve ever heard in music, but for some reason, my dad couldn’t start his daily commute without it. The first five seconds of this song could wake up a coma victim, so imagine being the scared and sobbing four-year-old in the backseat. It was torture, and it went on every day for an entire school year. The following year, when I started kindergarten, I chose to take the bus rather than subject myself to that terrible song. I only lived a few blocks from the school, but I willingly suffered an hour-long bus route rather than let Paul Simon ruin me completely.

Even today, hearing the song is an almost debilitating, full-body experience. I get tense, angry, and depending on the time elapsed before the song is turned off, violent. Combine the stress of being dragged to preschool against my will and feeling abandoned once I got there (come on, I was four), plus the odd smell of my dad’s LeBaron mixing with his obnoxiously potent Old Spice, and there you have the worst experience of my childhood.

My feelings about this song have become a running joke for my dad and other family members. A few nights ago, in fact, my dad called me and held his phone to the car speaker which was playing – you guessed it – “You Can Call Me Al.” I laughed (because I can laugh about it now), but I swiftly clicked the “end call” button. I still hate that song with a passion.