Today I drove my niece, Meredith, home while Jon stayed in bed battling what the doctors think may be a case of West Nile Virus -- it's either that or a bad bout of The Whimpers. Sometimes I think there's a cat being strangled in the dishwasher, and then realize that it's just Jon trying to roll over on his side again.

Meredith sat in the front seat next to me rolling her eyes at the numbing monotony of NPR. I haven't listened to any other radio station in probably ten years, and would have a hard time naming a single artist with a song anywhere in the top 40, so I asked if she had any suggestions as to what we should listen to. She grabbed hold of the knob and tuned it immediately to the local rap station. Do you think that when 50 Cent sits down at night and counts his money that he thinks about his fans in Utah, and giggles a little bit?

A song I had never heard was playing, and Meredith began singing along to the lyrics without missing a note:

"Do your chain hang low
do it wobble to da flo
do it shine in the light
iz it platinum iz it gold..."

"Your chain?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know, your chain. Like, how you keep your wallet attached to your pants," she said. I thought those were called pockets, but WHAT DO I KNOW.

I didn't say anything, and instead rolled down the windows and turned up the stereo until the speakers started to rattle. And then, involuntarily, I started humming. By the time I dropped her off I had the chorus stuck in my head, and felt confident that if I were to have a chain and anyone were to inquire about said chain's altitude, that I would have only one answer: It do.