Talk, Dark and Much Too Loud

A few days before Christmas vacation ended, my husband brought home a tall, thin, electronic addition to our household. This new floor speaker with an iPod (and iPhone) dock had been on sale, and so it had been necesssary for him to give it a good home.

At first, I was actually pleased. A couple of days of feeling under the weather had given the poor man such cabin fever that the shopping list he'd generated contained items both ridiculous and absurd - from my perspective, anyway. The speaker was mild by comparison. And it made him happy.

What's the saying about fish and houseguests? After three days they begin to stink? If it please the court, Your Honor, I would like to add electronics that make the floors shake to that list.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating - a little. But I believe that I have mentioned in previous posts that we live in a small house. There are only three of us, so clutter notwithstanding, the house is usually of the Goldilocks variety - "just right."

I can't say the same for the speaker.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that there is nowhere in our house that you can go to escape the music. The next room? No way. The room beyond that? Ha. Upstairs? It comes through the floorboards. Basement? No better.

"It's not that loud, Mom."

Sometimes, that's true, although it is pretty funny coming from the kid who complains that my computer keys click too loudly. Other times...well, let's just say we have a different definition of the word "loud." Add to that the fact that when I'm working on something that requires concentration, I prefer "soft" - and silent is even better.

I want to be fun and flexible. I don't want to be the mom who shuts off the music, the wife who asks if we really need to listen to that right now. And so I try to escape, but escape is impossible. I try to structure my activities to coincide with the volume of my surroundings, leaping into work that requires concentration when the house is quiet and finding alternative activities when the music (which my daughter uses as background when she studies and which my husband uses as background, period) is filling every corner of every room on the main floor of our house.

I suppose I will adjust. After all, I love my husband and daughter and this is their home, too.

But as for the tall, thin interloper?

He's currently in the stinky stage.