On The Spot

“I go where?”

“Spotify.  Now that we have WiFi, you put the client on your desktop and you can listen to anything.”

Kid One is attempting to enlighten me on the endless musical possibilities the Internet has to offer. I’m attempting to decipher how the Internet is made up of enough nonsense words for Dr. Seuss to write a novel.

“That sounds illegal. If I had a client on my desktop the only thing I would hear would be the sound of his lawyer threatening to take my house.”

“Mom. Get real. Nobody would willingly get on your desk.”

“I was quite a catch in my day.”

“You didn’t have a day. You had a decade of disco.  Besides, nobody would fit on your desk. You collect things.”

“I need everything that’s on that desk.”

“Three pencil cups?”

“They all have special meaning.  The elephant and the clown came from the circus, and your aunt stole the flowered cup from a yard sale just for me.”

 “It’s STOLEN?” Kid One looks gleeful at the thought of a woman who wouldn’t take an after dinner mint without asking bending the law.

“Well, not technically.  It was hidden inside a coat she bought.”

“My life is a lie. I was raised in a den of thieves.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“So what about that stack of ratty notebooks?”

“Those are my journals.  Everything from my first kiss to your first diaper is in that stack.”

“Sounds libelous.  Or slanderous.  Or whatever means that if you show them to my friends I’ll have to join the Witness Protection Program.  They have to go.”

“No way. I’d sooner part with my tiara.”

“That reminds me. Why do you have a tiara on your desk?”

“Why do you listen to Spotify?”

 “So I can hear anything I want.  It takes me whereever I want to go.”

I popped the tiara on my head and transported immediately to a faraway island country where I reign as Queen and every inhabitant is over forty years of age and wears an overcoat over their swimsuit.

“And with this I can hear what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

His voice faded as I sat back and listened to the waves splash gently onto the white sandy beach.

“Quiet.”