Our plans are coming together: we’ve just acquired a used stereo receiver, have a refurbished turntable lined up, and now all we need are speakers and my grandfather’s LPs. Crankenstein, who has fond memories of listening to her dad’s vinyl while doing homework in what was formerly his den, asked her parents this weekend if they still have their record collection. They could hardly contain their excitement on the other end of the line; finally, she wanted to take something off their hands!
We aren’t sure how long it will take for them to unearth these ancient artifacts, but Crankenstein hopes they held onto her favorite Silly Wizard and Jethro Tull albums and that she can play them again, more than half a lifetime later, while doing a different sort of homework (preparing presentations, finishing patient notes) in a house of her own. I’ve also asked my parents to set aside a few records that hold immense sentimental value — including Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy, which my maternal grandparents gave Dad for Christmas in 1978, when he was Mom’s teenage boyfriend; and Mom’s copies of Barbra Streisand’s Guilty, Carole King’s Tapestry, and Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man — if they still have them.*
Sorry for another brief entry tonight, a streak I’d like to snap tomorrow if my sleep cooperates tonight.** Last night I didn’t fall asleep until 4 am, despite being so tired I bungled my McCheese writing and editing; two hours later, Muriel was hungry. Crankenstein found us curled up together when she came downstairs later this morning; then she grocery shopped solo so I could prepare for the day ahead, including trips to the library and art supply store. While she searched for the necessary Micron pens to finish her latest drawing, I perused the balsa and basswood displays for scale model inspiration and made note of an acrylic paint to buy next time it’s on sale.
“Did you notice they’ve put more merchandise under lock and key?” I asked on the way home, once we’d traded observations about how elder Millennial and Gen X shoppers — women one and all — quietly sang along to the Matchbox Twenty and Goo Goo Dolls songs piped throughout the store. Meanwhile, the Zoomers and their mothers knew all the words to newer tunes we didn’t recognize.^
“Yeah,” she replied. They’d also moved the more expensive pens and markers from the bins closest to the entrance/exit to a display on the opposite end of the store, perhaps to deter their more timid shoplifters.
We speculated about how long it’ll take, should prices continue to rise, before half of their inventory’s kept in cages. How free a country would this really be if there aren’t ample displays of Sharpies, pens, and scratch pads scattered throughout art stores for 13-year-olds to scribble four-letter words while their parents aren’t looking?
* I believe a young Felix accidentally destroyed some of our records by scratching the bejesus out of them. Michael Jackson’s “Rockin’ Robin” (which was better when performed with his brothers, anyway) and the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” two of our favorite jams as toddlers, were among his casualties; he didn’t share my passion for the Pointer Sisters and I didn’t share his for Oscar the Grouch’s unapologetic gutter anthem, “I Love Trash.”
** This post was intended for the McCheese thread until it got away from me.
^ Or was it Matchbox Twenty and Edwin McCain? Had we arrived slightly earlier or stayed a few minutes longer, there would’ve surely been some Third Eye Blind.