The big 4-0. It was supposed to be a moment of reflection. A time to consider what the next chapter of life will hold.

But that morning of my fortieth birthday, something was different.

I awoke to a sharp, unsettling sensation, as though something in the universe had shifted and my very DNA had been altered. The low, almost imperceptible hum of a Fender Rhodes electric piano reverberated through my bones. The room was the same, but something felt… wrong. Almost…sinister.

I grabbed my phone, half-conscious, still trying to shake off sleep, when I saw it. The screen lit up like a portal to something foreign yet familiar. A doorway into a world of adult-oriented rock.

It was Steely Dan. Their entire discography. Every album, every track, downloaded without my consent. As if it had materialized overnight, as if it had come for me.

“I’m not a Steely Dan fan,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. “I’m a 2000s indie kid. I like the Strokes, and… some more recent bands I can’t name at the moment. I’m not some middle-aged dad.” Granted, I literally am forty and have kids, but you know what I mean.

“I wouldn’t be caught dead grooving on the smooth yet acerbic vocals of Donald Fagen, unless I was doing it ironically.”

I thought it was a mistake. A sort of digital glitch. Maybe my phone had gone rogue, or worse, was possessed by the spirit of a vengeful Baby Boomer trying to drag me into the cold, cryptic world of jazz rock fusion. So, I deleted the albums.

But they returned.

Can’t Buy a Thrill. Pretzel Logic. Countdown to Ecstasy. Every album, parked in my music folder like a personal threat.

Was I going crazy? Is this some sort of karmic retribution for my past crimes of Pitchfork-inspired music snobbery? Did I accidentally run over a soft-rock-loving gypsy lady who then cursed me to forever appreciate SD’s use of backdoor dominants and tritone subs?

Oh god, did I just call them “SD” like a casual Steely Dan fan? I suppose “Reelin’ in the Years” is an okay song, but….

No. NO. I refuse to accept my fate. I refuse to transform into the most ghastly and hideous of beasts on God’s green earth—a Steely Dan enjoyer!

Still, as I try to deny my destiny, the days grow heavier. The ground beneath my feet no longer feels solid. It’s as if I am walking through a dream punctuated by Michael McDonald’s dulcet background vocals.

And then there are whispers. Oh, the whispers! Soft at first, then growing louder.

“… Aja…”

“… Bodhisattva…”

“… Did you know Steely Dan’s original drummer was Chevy Chase?”

But tonight, a new sensation has flooded over me.

I felt… hunger. Not for food. But for something else. Something I couldn’t name, but I recognized it. It was Steely Dan. The music. The rhythm. The complex, jazzy, slick melodies that crawled under my skin like an infection. It was pulling me in, suffocating me with its yacht rock embrace.

I thought back to when I was younger, to all the times I heard Steely Dan and made fun of it. I didn’t get it. It was too corny. Too corporate. Too much like background music in a dentist’s office. But now? Now I hear the genius behind the smoothness. The calculated precision. It wasn’t a mistake; it was art. It’s so much the opposite of punk rock that it’s gone full circle and has become more punk rock than real punk rock.

I could feel the change in me. The Dan now courses through my veins. And I have become the thing I had always feared.

I am now Old.

On the bright side, at least I didn’t become one of those middle-aged guys who get super into prog rock.