There are only a couple of people in this world who should play a recorder. You aren't one of them and my son, Nathan, is most certainly not one of them, either.
In my evolution as a human, I have come to hold much less defined beliefs as to the nature of evil, but when I came home and found my son screeching away on his shiny new recorder, I immediately discovered a powerful certainty that Satan is alive and walks the earth.
"Hey, dad," my freckled one grinned, "Look what I got!"
"Wonderful," I regurgitated. Then I felt invisible, malicious fingers grasping at my throat.
So, let's examine the (maybe) two categories of people who have a right to play the recorder:
1). if you are a wizened Navaho Indian sitting alone under a vast night sky atop a red rock mesa, then you may be a candidate. The recorder "properly" played gives off that haunting, lonesome wail that seems most appropriate to wilderness places--places where other humans can't hear you.
2).
Turns out there was only one category.
Anyone else who presumes to take up the recorder is either a small child upon whom this instrument of evil has been forced, or a sadist. Or both.
My son is both, I'm pretty sure.
6 comments:
I like the part about the wizened Navajo. I always thought the old Indians and hermits went off alone because they were wise and wanted to ponder the universe. Turns out, they were driven from their tribes because of their incessant recorder recitals.
You have my sympathy. Where I live, 4th grade was the year of horror, although 2nd grade and its "Do your ears hang low" and "Miss Merry Mack" caused many parents to take a fork to their eardrums, too.
Be thankful it is not the bagpipes or the violin.
Woohoo! The violin! Now we're going to get some pap of a lecture from PeeDoubleYou about how the violin is the king of instruments. I can smell it coming. (I agree with the bagpipes, by the way. They are the devil's own instrument.)
Well, I must concede to your grungy bathroom point. In fact, most pianists never play in stadiums at all. "My fingers are cold!" And, while I love the sound and feel of a piano, I've also regretted not learning the guitar. While one can gather around the piano and sing, it's a somewhat troublesome instrument to lug around on hiking trips for the sole purpose of having one handy in the off-chance there will be a campfire sing-a-long. Hmmm. That'd make a great Pat McManus tale.
Oh, you devious-minded thing, you. Good idea.
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