"stylophone", or, "they're not usually this celebrity-centric, i promise"
04/04/2006
I was in Parma, contemplating the task of making a nacho salad for my family. We were out of most of the ingredients, though, so I headed to Hi-Land Garden Center to pick up some groceries. As I searched among the trowels, I was surprised to hear Dial-a-Song only TMBG track "Why Be Realistic?" on the elevator music. I kept looking for taco ingredients--skirt steak, crushed red peppers, cilantro, onions--and another TMBG song came up, this time the slightly less obscure "Hideaway Folk Family". It was followed immediately by Mono Puff's "Unsupervised, I Hit My Head." I wondered if the garden store was playing a college radio station over its speakers--maybe some dorky college kid was responsible for all the TMBG.
I must have said it out loud, because a girl I don't know who lives in Dewey House spoke up behind me.
"No, it was actually some weird lady with a bird name," she said.
I went up to the garden store's "radio room"; it turned out Robin Goldwasser was the one spinning the elevator tunes. She was dressed as a fortune teller. She explained the importance of Muzak to me, using a lot of huge, theatrical arm gestures.
John Flansburgh showed up as she was reading my palm. He took off the jacket he was wearing, part of a business suit, and thew it onto a coat hook in the radio room. The two of them then proceeded to catch many of the store's customers up in an enormous song and dance number celebrating the new 39-cent stamp. After some dancing up and down several staircases, spiral and otherwise, the number culminated in an enormous arms-linked crack-the-whip in the gravel section.
David Letterman and his desk appeared out of nowhere just in time for Flans to slide into it. Letterman made a jokey-snide reference to Michael Stipe, who had apparently done the exact same thing to him last spring, and Flansburgh shot back some nonsensical comment that was clearly an in-joke between them. I'd had enough of that and decided to leave.
I went out to the parking lot and couldn't find my car, but fortunately my parents were waiting outside in our old station wagon. We took a Sunday drive to what Dad had heard was the best playground in the Parma/Seven Hills/Independence area.
When we arrived, the playground looked abandoned. It wasn't just empty of people; it was muddy, and little bits of Kleenex, cloth and newspaper were clinging to it. The plastic on one of the slides looked like it had been scorched with some twelve-year-old's cigarette lighter; I came closer and noticed that on the wood near it had a chalked message from the sheriff.
I will replace this banana with my kids' if that's what it comes to, it said.
By "banana" I think he meant slide.
PS: Watch out for Marc, he's from New Jersey, and the fox is from Glasgow.
I climbed the playground. It really had been spectacular at one point. There was all sorts of detail in the wood parts--furniture, ledges, windows, carvings--and the plastic and steel parts were colorful and innovative. As I entered the treehouse at the top, a bedraggled-looking red and blue parrot hopped around my feet, then went back into the treehouse. This, I assumed, was Marc.
"We used to have a parrot like that," said Patrick, whom I hadn't noticed climbing the ladder behind me. He was about 15 and probably five years older than me. He had become a kind, athletic and artsy teenager. He went back down to the swings.
Inside the treehouse were a table and two chairs. A bed was built into one wall.
I looked inside the bed to find a slightly muddy fox wearing a pink nightgown. It was sleeping.
I stroked its head and it woke up. It looked very peaceful. But soon it had had enough of being petted and it nipped me on the right index finger. I got up immediately and went to leave, but this time it actively sought my finger and bit it hard. I tried to pull my hand back but the fox was hanging off it.
I flung the fox back into the bed as gently as I could and ran out of the treehouse. It kept coming after me and hanging off my finger; this happened two or three more times as I ran toward the car. I yelled for Rolf Harris and Captain Kangaroo to help me so I could get back to the station wagon safely.
They did eventually show up, but by that time I was almost to the station wagon. I got into the car and we drove back home.
Later I was in the kitchen reading the GEOS 13100 textbook and making the nachos. I noticed that our living room is painted peach. It's been green since about 1998. I looked at the Campbell's soup calendar in the kitchen to find that it was 1996.
I was in Parma, contemplating the task of making a nacho salad for my family. We were out of most of the ingredients, though, so I headed to Hi-Land Garden Center to pick up some groceries. As I searched among the trowels, I was surprised to hear Dial-a-Song only TMBG track "Why Be Realistic?" on the elevator music. I kept looking for taco ingredients--skirt steak, crushed red peppers, cilantro, onions--and another TMBG song came up, this time the slightly less obscure "Hideaway Folk Family". It was followed immediately by Mono Puff's "Unsupervised, I Hit My Head." I wondered if the garden store was playing a college radio station over its speakers--maybe some dorky college kid was responsible for all the TMBG.
I must have said it out loud, because a girl I don't know who lives in Dewey House spoke up behind me.
"No, it was actually some weird lady with a bird name," she said.
I went up to the garden store's "radio room"; it turned out Robin Goldwasser was the one spinning the elevator tunes. She was dressed as a fortune teller. She explained the importance of Muzak to me, using a lot of huge, theatrical arm gestures.
John Flansburgh showed up as she was reading my palm. He took off the jacket he was wearing, part of a business suit, and thew it onto a coat hook in the radio room. The two of them then proceeded to catch many of the store's customers up in an enormous song and dance number celebrating the new 39-cent stamp. After some dancing up and down several staircases, spiral and otherwise, the number culminated in an enormous arms-linked crack-the-whip in the gravel section.
David Letterman and his desk appeared out of nowhere just in time for Flans to slide into it. Letterman made a jokey-snide reference to Michael Stipe, who had apparently done the exact same thing to him last spring, and Flansburgh shot back some nonsensical comment that was clearly an in-joke between them. I'd had enough of that and decided to leave.
I went out to the parking lot and couldn't find my car, but fortunately my parents were waiting outside in our old station wagon. We took a Sunday drive to what Dad had heard was the best playground in the Parma/Seven Hills/Independence area.
When we arrived, the playground looked abandoned. It wasn't just empty of people; it was muddy, and little bits of Kleenex, cloth and newspaper were clinging to it. The plastic on one of the slides looked like it had been scorched with some twelve-year-old's cigarette lighter; I came closer and noticed that on the wood near it had a chalked message from the sheriff.
I will replace this banana with my kids' if that's what it comes to, it said.
By "banana" I think he meant slide.
PS: Watch out for Marc, he's from New Jersey, and the fox is from Glasgow.
I climbed the playground. It really had been spectacular at one point. There was all sorts of detail in the wood parts--furniture, ledges, windows, carvings--and the plastic and steel parts were colorful and innovative. As I entered the treehouse at the top, a bedraggled-looking red and blue parrot hopped around my feet, then went back into the treehouse. This, I assumed, was Marc.
"We used to have a parrot like that," said Patrick, whom I hadn't noticed climbing the ladder behind me. He was about 15 and probably five years older than me. He had become a kind, athletic and artsy teenager. He went back down to the swings.
Inside the treehouse were a table and two chairs. A bed was built into one wall.
I looked inside the bed to find a slightly muddy fox wearing a pink nightgown. It was sleeping.
I stroked its head and it woke up. It looked very peaceful. But soon it had had enough of being petted and it nipped me on the right index finger. I got up immediately and went to leave, but this time it actively sought my finger and bit it hard. I tried to pull my hand back but the fox was hanging off it.
I flung the fox back into the bed as gently as I could and ran out of the treehouse. It kept coming after me and hanging off my finger; this happened two or three more times as I ran toward the car. I yelled for Rolf Harris and Captain Kangaroo to help me so I could get back to the station wagon safely.
They did eventually show up, but by that time I was almost to the station wagon. I got into the car and we drove back home.
Later I was in the kitchen reading the GEOS 13100 textbook and making the nachos. I noticed that our living room is painted peach. It's been green since about 1998. I looked at the Campbell's soup calendar in the kitchen to find that it was 1996.
Labels: celebrities, Dad, family, food, Patrick, playground, pop music, time travel
posted by Kat at 9:44 PM
2 Comments:
If you can have a dream this cool and weird that merely involves stylophones, imagine what would happen if you actually got one...
most likely i really WOULD get to take part in a huge dance number with the wife of the business partner of my favorite stylophonist ev4r and the business partner of my favorite stylophonist ev4rrrrrr
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