Sorry for the weirdness that may have shown up in your e-mail or feeds—I hit Publish too soon and panicked!
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In a week or so, Janie is going up to a Concordia Language Village event with some of her classmates to be complete immersed in Spanish for several days.
It’s a fantastic opportunity and she’s excited about being allowed to go this year, but she does have one overwhelming concern. It isn’t about the time away from home or how she’ll communicate in Spanish, or meeting other children from other schools, or even about what she’ll wear.
It’s what electronic gizmo she’ll be bringing with her for the long bus ride.
Because everyone is taking something! A Nintendo or even their iPads! Everyone.
“You don’t have a Nintendo or an iPad, honey.”
“I KNOW.”
You want to have fun? Suggest, from a safe distance, that she take some books, instead, and then hold up a Jiffy Pop bag.
Death Ray Vision Popcorn—Mmmmm!
But, you know, I get it. I really do. And I’ve taken Janie on many long trips myself. So, to spare everyone involved the sheer force of my daughter’s personality in a small space under conditions of extreme boredom and envy, I’ve decided she can take my MP3 player .*
On the way to school this morning, I told her I’d wipe it and we’d reload it together from my laptop this weekend.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because there are some songs and other things on there that aren’t appropriate,” I said.
“Right—because other kids might borrow it and listen to stuff like that one weird song about riding cowboys.”
“Exact—what?”
“Uh, never mind,” she said. “Go, Mom. Light’s green.”
Uh-huh. No wonder I can’t keep the thing charged . . .
I’m not sure if it’s the language that’s prompting me to clear out all my music or if it’s the risk of embarrassment should anyone other than an eight-year see some of the stuff I have on there.
If nothing else, they might get the impression that I’m suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Besides Big & Rich, I’ve got some Chris Cagle and Christian Kane in there—and Charlie Daniels because no one can wring a fiddle like he does.
But there’s also Metallica and Apocalyptica, and the Pimps, Snow Patrol and Franz Ferdinand, Kate Miller-Heidke and Bessie Smith, Nirvana and Nickelback, Three Dog Night and Skillet, a few boy bands and one—one—Miley Cyrus, many Pink, Lady Gaga and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the lesser misogynist offerings of 3OH!3, some movie soundtracks—including Iron Man, Tangled, and 5th Element— a couple of Bach fugues and the Hallelujah Chorus because sometimes you just gotta, Trout Fishing in America, and a lengthy playlist labeled “Lisa’s Music Mondays.”
Maybe I have multiple music disorder. Except I don’t think it’s a disorder and I’m not exactly suffering.
One’s musical preferences, like one’s preferences for saving horses by taking alternative forms of biological transportation, are personal and should not be forced upon others or summarily mocked.**
Sharing, of course, is to be encouraged.
But the majority of my eclectic music collection is still going bye-bye, at least until Jane gets back. Just in case.
Especially Samuel F. Jackson’s reading of “Go the F*ck to Sleep.”
Even if the chaperones will be thinking the exact same thing.
What’s your musical skeleton?
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* And headphones, which she and her sister have all but pulled apart anyway. So it’s not all about altruism.
**Much. You know, just among family and friends. And that one guy in the three-piece suit visibly grooving to Yanni on the bus, because, really?
Earful of Cider 