Yesterday was a day of children in the store. I have a Love / Hate relationship with children – I tend to hate them in a gruff, rough and tumble kind of way and despite this (or because of this), they tend to Love me. The first child of the morning though, was charming. Crazy curly blonde hair in tumbles every which way, just under two years old with a surprising (to me) grasp of knowledge. We stared at one another (I do a lot of staring contests with children – they tend to like looking at me and I don’t really know how to respond, this generally either keeps them fascinated to the point that they’ll reach out and try to grab my hair OR it’ll make them cry) for a bit before she started reorganizing all of our musical shaker fruit… the “appahs” needed to go with the “appahs” and the “ojahs” were placed with other oranges. Pears were apparently worthy of oral investigation which we promptly discouraged, to which she responded “ok man”. She was ready to fall asleep by the time she was carried out, but sleepily raised her head and said “gbye man” and that was the last enjoyable child of the day.
Meg Bowen performing at the Red House Tavern in Baltimore, MD. I’ve got to admire anyone who tries to play on a stool while wear an LBD. And yes, that’s a 60 year-old jazz guitar.
Fancy guitar. Not as fancy as Meg’s. Well… different fancy. I need to spend some time figuring out al that Lives on the surface there.
The rest were from Hell. They climbed on djembes and the parents got angry when I told them “no” and they poked the banjos and some of them screeched and they all RAN everywhere and they like to beat the drums and ask inane questions and they don’t understand that things that are out of their reach are probably there for a reason.
This is Senor Sharif. He is debonaire and charming and can pleasure two women with his mustache at the VERY SAME TIME. He is stunning like that. And a little frightening. Don’t let the white hair fool you, he has the stamina of a younger man and will Love you long time.
And of course, monkeys were launched with wild abandon, sans any sort of forethought as to where they would land. They were launched at girls, gongs, drums, walls, employees, parents, other children and the beagle that someone had snuck in. Now, I must admit that I’m guilty of having fired a monkey or three at girls, gongs, drums, walls, fellow employees, my employer, my mom and occasional children (though never a DOG!!!) – but I did so out of a sense of fun, humour, joy – and in hopes of selling a monkey! Never simply to express the fact that I was possessed by Satan.
And so, I fear children and believe that we should have a small closet at the front where, in exchange for a ticket, parents would check their kids. They can pick them up (or one roughly similar) at the end of their visit to the store with a minimum of fuss. We would provide the children with all of the fun possible to have in a small locked closet and in return would not kill them when they throw a wooden toad at a thousand dollar guitar.
