A Lesson in Musical Diversity

Before the Test That Consumed My Life happened, I was working on a portion of my New Year Anti-Resolution. That particular project involved tackling the massive amounts of debris reproducing in my basement. The project started out innocently enough, as I sifted through haphazard boxes that took up residency there when we moved in four years ago. At about box number three, I found the music. I spent hours and hours sorting through CD’s, reuniting orphaned discs with their dusty delinquent parental-unit cases. This duty required extensive trips down memory lane, some glorious and some so nauseating that it made me throw up in my mouth a little.

It wasn’t all that disturbing to find decades worth of music in my basement. What was disturbing was to locate a plethora of CD’s from the 90’s. A decade old and not only do I own them, but I remember when they were popular. You might as well knock me over, put support hose on me and paint the blue eye-shadow on, as I am sailing straight into old age.

The exhilarating bonus to locating all of this music is that I have found myself in a never-ending supply of new music. Admittedly, all music that I am not nearly cool enough to be listening to. Verve Pipe. Phish. Sublime. Rusted Root. Talking Heads. Pearl Jam. Seriously, who was the person that took my musical-taste hostage in 1996? At least I've been overwhelming entertained by this historic journey through my alter-ego.

Incidentally, Kate has recently moved from the random-inquisitive-stage to the questioning-everything-freaking-possible-until-mom’s-head-spins-180 degrees-stage. Not surprising is that Kate’s obsession with questioning has included music. What song is this mom? Who sings this mom? What song is this? I said what song? Who sings this song mom? Needless to say, I've answered more than my fair share of these questions over the past few weeks.

Over the weekend, we were driving down the road and Kate nonchalantly says, “I want to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins.”

Excuse me.

My first thought is the myriad of people who do not know that the Smashing Pumpkins are indeed a musical group. What exactly are they going to think of my wild three-year old asking for Smashing Pumpkins? I am assuming that it will be the proverbial nail in the coffin, an affirmation to what they already believe about the parenting taking place in this house.

On second thought, on the premise that they are familiar with the Smashing Pumpkins, perhaps worse assumptions could be made about both our parenting style and Miss Kate’s musical taste.