Music to My Ears

As if we all aren’t overstimulated enough these days…

As if there aren’t a million things competing for our attention and our patience – the TV in the background, the phone dinging with messages, dinner burning on the stove…

As if I’m not staring down the barrel of perimenopause and already irritated with the world…

We now enter the year of the recorder.

I don’t know what’s worse: the sound of my husband’s hand digging through the foil potato chip bag late at night, or the air whistling through the plastic instrument with the force of someone trying to inflate an inner tube.

It’s truly torture.

Haven’t we evolved enough over the past decade to move on to something more friendly on the eardrums?

Maybe some kind of chime?

Can’t we embrace the power of a good, quiet hum?

At least the instrument was only $7.99 and arrived overnight. The nearest Amazon warehouse must be stocked with these anxiety-inducing plastic devices. And I’m sure we’ll be ordering another after Mikey inevitably loses the first one.

Or it “accidentally” ends up under the tire of my SUV.

Shortly after the recorder arrived and my eye was already twitching as the off-key tone filtered through the household, the 8-year-old asked me if I knew how to play it.

“Let me see.” I thoroughly wiped the chocolatey silva off the mouthpiece and brought the instrument to my mouth…

Here’s the thing: ask me what I had for breakfast, and I couldn’t tell you.

What time is flag football practice on Saturdays?

I forget.

What’s the login to my email when it signs me out?

God only knows.

I won’t be able to help Mikey with his future social studies homework because the dates of important historical events have been purged so I can remember a new username and password.

But, hot damn, I brought that record to my lips and tooted out “Hot Crossed Buns” like it was only yesterday that I was sitting in Mrs. Gavigan’s third-grade class next to Heidi Schultz, wearing a Jordan Night T-Shirt and stonewashed jeans.

Some things really are like riding a bike.

Thoughts and prayers are appreciated this school year as Mikey perfects his recorder performance, which will culminate with a spring concert. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if he’s shaping up to be the next Mozart.

Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Press/Times and mother of an 8-year-old boy. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.