Dad, What’s a Record?
Source: WikipediaI had a couple of easy things on the Honey-Do list early yesterday morning and went into the garage to work on one of the projects that needed the table saw. The only problem was that once I was in the garage, I realized that there were so many boxes and bins stacked all around in haphazard order, that I couldn’t actually get to the table saw.
So, the Honey-Do list flew out the window, and I set out to clean up the garage, enlisting the family’s help. Over the next several hours, the Goodwill, trash, and recycle piles grew, while the contents of the warehouse racks and dozens of bins were organized, stacked, packed, repacked, pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, and numbered. Dust flew to the sound of several NPR talk shows. Work would occasionally grind to a halt, though, in order for one family member or another to reminisce about some treasured memento.
In one bin, amid the concert programs, honeymoon pictures, and souvenirs from that winter trip to Mexico, I found my antique Thomas A. Edison record, and excitedly drew the family together to talk about my find. Three words into my soliloquy, the moment was shattered by my 12-year-old daughter.
“Dad, what’s a record?”
You remember those Wile E. Coyote cartoons when the coyote was madly chasing that speedy roadrunner around that desert landscape? Just as the literary brainiac who could afford Acme products but not order fresh roadrunner was about to catch a quick dinner, that spindly little roadrunner would charge ahead, leaving the coyote in the dust. Inevitably followed by a bottom jaw dropping soundlessly to the ground in awe and despair.
I must have looked an awful lot like that unfortunate coyote. My wife and I looked at each other in stunned silence, followed by a bout of raucous laughter. And since I couldn’t live in the moment without sharing the episode with just about every neighbor of at least driving age who was home at the time, work ceased for several minutes as I told and retold the story around the neighborhood, receiving the same shocked, jaw-dropped expressions.
Man, for that minute or so, I sure felt old. And so did everyone else around us. A short time later, though, we were all back to work, the moment briefly forgotten as we moved on to additional (and more easily recognizable) treasures, the record safely stored away again.
At least I have one thing to look forward to 20 years or so from now when she has kids of her own — “Mom, what’s a CD?”
