won't cost you one spare dime

Joe and I spend so much time on the phone together (long-distance relationship and all that, for those just tuning in) that the phrase "gimme a ring-a-ling" has weirdly permeated our shared vernacular, and so we talk about or at least make reference to this song way more than I think most couples probably should. But somehow it's taken us years to consider the possibility that someone might have actually registered DingALing.com. Until tonight, at least.

I just checked, and was of course expecting to be confronted with either nasty nasty porn or some kind of Hi-Town DJs fansite (even a Chuck Berry shrine, for God's sake). But, quite shockingly, I found neither. DingALing.com appears to be either some kind of very half-assed ad-bot site or the incredibly misguided homepage of some memory-loss-slash-travel-agency. And then Ding-A-Ling.com is currently unregistered. I mean, I know the line isn't "Ding dash a dash ling dot com" but I still thought it might be an option—but no.

How is this even possible? I would think that one of the most prominent URL shout-outs in pop music history would be an absolute shoe-in for some icky robot ad site. Not to mention—this is the Internet, folks. It is a vile, disgusting place that fosters and encourages peoples' basest impulses at every turn. Anything you can think of, especially if that thing is of a sexual nature, no matter how gross or twisted or repulsive—actually, especially if it's gross or twisted or repulsive—it is here. So why is Ding-A-Ling.com sitting there empty, uncorrupted? My assumption that any euphemistic term for "penis" would have its very own corresponding website in every imaginable variant spelling, dot com dot net dot everything. But clearly I was very, very wrong about this.

Internet, you have let me down. You are not gross enough.

Now excuse me while I go drown my sorrows in the dulcet tones of the Hi-Town DJs.