Just lately, I’ve been teetering on the edge of another one of those funks when I feel like my moment has come and gone, and the Arbiters of Cool have declared all the things I like obsolete and irrelevant, and it’s just as well I don’t have kids because what the hell could I possibly have in common with them at this point? You know, that thing Grampa Simpson was talking about when he said “I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me.” (You see! A Simpsons reference. How passe’ is that? I hate it when I inadvertently prove my own point!)

But then today, just as the Generation Gap was yawning before me like the Grand Canyon and the edge was crumbling under my feet, onto my morning train stepped a pretty young blonde that I would guess was about seventeen years old. (Must… resist… obvious reference to the Stray Cats song…) She wore jeans that were ripped out at the knees, with red-and-black striped tights beneath, and fingerless knit gloves, and the ubiquitous hoodie. She was the sort of girl I would’ve fallen instantly in love with, once upon a far-off time when I was seventeen myself. She was holding an iPhone on which I could see a video playing, and she was bopping her head along to the accompanying music.

I cringed, because I really wasn’t in the mood to have some inconsiderate Damn Kid(tm) who can’t be bothered to wear headphones foisting her crappy music on me. My irritation rose as she sat down right across the aisle from me and turned her gadget toward me so the music grew even louder. And then I caught what she was listening to… and my mouth almost literally fell open from the surprise. It was something I knew. More than that, it was something I like, a song called “I Need to Know,” written by Tom Petty.

This particular version of the song was a live clip featuring my rock-n-roll sweetheart, the eternally sexy (in my eyes) Stevie Nicks, singing the lead while Petty provides the guitar and back-up vocal. In fact, I think it was this very clip here:

Seeing a teenage girl so obviously and unironically enjoying a song that was originally recorded when I was just a kid myself — 1978, to be exact — performed by two people old enough to be her grandparents, gave me such a simple feeling of genuine happiness that I feel foolish even trying to describe it.

My train stop came up just as the song was ending. I debated over saying something to the girl, telling her that she’d dispelled a black fog from my heart, or maybe just that she had excellent taste in music, but I feared coming across as some kind of creep. (It pains me deeply that a grown man can’t even speak to a young girl anymore without worrying that he’ll be, ahem, misunderstood!) So I settled for just tapping her on the shoulder as I passed and saying, “For what it’s worth, I love that one.”

She giggled. She actually giggled. And I had the brief impression I’d made her day as much as she’d made mine.

Then I stepped off the train and started walking toward the office. I noticed I had something resembling a spring in my step. And I was smiling, too.

Thanks, kid. Whoever you were. You don’t know how much good you did this morning.