Play Guitar

"Forget all about that macho shit and learn how to play guitar."
John Cougar Mellencamp


Grace and I have had two guitar lessons now. The first one was last week and we had homework to practice. We sat down at the couch and tried to practice the three notes we just learned. E, F, and G. All three on the first string. We learned whole notes, half notes and quarter notes and had a whole page of music to practice.

Grace was excited to practice for all of about three minutes. Then she declared it "boring" and asked if she could be done.

"NO, you can not be done. We are going to practice the guitar together." I said in my most authoritarian MOM voice. Well, it pretty much only went downhill from there. She was slumping and wiggling around barely even trying.

I told on her to Daddy when he came out and of course she straightened up for a little while. We had the talk with her that she was going to do this because we wanted her to. (Which of course only ever backfires).

The whole time I just kept having flashbacks of my Dad trying to teach me to balance my checkbook at the kitchen table when I was 16. That pretty much ended in tears for me and don't tell him but I never balanced it once from that day forward.

I just assume the bank is right unless I see a glaring error. I don't care about pennies. Sorry Dad, I was an English Major remember.

I also remember having a throw down, blubbery crying FIT to play the trumpet at school. Remember when the Band Representatives used to come to school and get us all whipped up into a frenzy to play an instrument? Well I, being the geek I was, chose the trumpet. No one ever get's popular or cool playing the trumpet my friend.

I wanted a NEW trumpet. A nice shiny one. Which of course was about $500 or $600.

After much drama they agreed to let me play the trumpet, but I had to start on a used trumpet. A friend of theirs had a used trumpet from their child's formative years that was gathering dust in the attic, so I became a trumpet player.

The first blow on that thing smelled like musty moldy dust. It never got any better. It was disgusting. You also had to clean and drain your own spit out of the thing on a regular basis.

I was never going to get a date playing the trumpet.

I quit after a few weeks.

Smart parents.

Fortunately, we only have $67 invested in this musical adventure. So all I really have to lose is my sanity.