By Jody
Worsham
All rights
reserved for ear plugs
My husband
was soon to celebrate his 72nd birthday.
The children were huddled up assembling the carrot birthday cake they
had decided to make for his birthday. The topic then turned to birthday
presents. The seven-year-old declared
presents weren’t necessary, “Because love is the best present… and that doesn’t
cost anything.” If he had just left off
that last part, I could have basked in the glow of superb parenting. The tween-ager, thinking more of her upcoming
birthday I’m sure, declared presents were an absolute must, but since I’m sure she was also thinking of her limited
cash flow from the Trump Chicken Condo business venture, she was thinking I
would have to provide the money for any gifts. From the office where Dr. Hubby was wading
through pages of credit card charges, I could hear rumblings and then very
clearly “No presents.
I can’t afford presents.”
“Well, you
can’t have a birthday party without some kind of present,” declared the
Tween-ager. I have always been a proponent
of giving something of yourself, something that cannot be bought or given by
anyone else. With this in mind, the
seven-year-old declared, “We will give him a concert.” Some of you may recall from past blogs the
Summer Concert for Plastic Barrel and Galvanized Pipe that lasted three hours
and caused dogs to howl and hearing aids to squeal. Since this did not require the Tween-ager to
delve into her egg money, she agreed. “A
concert is the perfect gift.”
Immediately
they abandoned the carrot cake, leaving me to finish up. Since I had been paying for violin lessons
for three years and started the seven-year-old on guitar lessons this summer, I
foolishly assumed the concert would involve, you know, actual musical instruments….and
maybe a recognizable song or two. Ha!
“Where is an empty shoe box?”
“I can’t
find the rubber bands.”
“I need two
pencils that have not been sharpened.”
“Are you
going to use these empty cans for anything?
“What are
you guys up to? “
“Recycling!
Who needs real drums when you have cans?”
“Multi-tasking. I’m checking out the science project on sound
and vibrations while making a shoe-box guitar.”
“We need
coke bottles filled with different levels of water. Not chemical bottles because you are going to
have to blow on them.”
While I
watched the cake and washed out coke bottles, rubber bands were stretched over
the shoe box and various sized cans became the Tween-ager’s version of steel
drums. Soon the “rehearsals” began. The seven-year-old strummed his “guitar”, the
Tween-ager kept the tin can beat going, and I blew till I was light headed.
A few
deafening minutes later, Dr. Hubby slipped me the credit card.
Happy
Birthday, Honey! Hope you like your presents.
4 comments:
That was teriffic. I hope you smiled through it even though you might have lost a few years of hearing.
Great story. Dr. Hubby came to a wise decision. Hope he likes his gifts.
I love this. So sweet and funny! "Tween-ager" - perfect.
Hey, thanks for the comments. We have lots of concerts around here, just wish they were on instruments for which I am paying for lessons .
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