Boy vs. Bass – Boy Wins!

While I’m making dinner and Vincent is sitting at the table doing homework, he announces that he has had a change of heart.  He doesn’t want to play the bass, afterall.

“It’s too big. I want something I can carry.”

I was glad he had that epiphany the night before the first day of orchestra, while we can still make the change. I don’t want to have to go to the orchestra teacher with my tail between my legs and beg for his permission to switch.

I look at my watch. There is still time to run this elephant back to the violin store and pick up something smaller. Perhaps something that isn’t going to cost the equivalent of feeding a ravenous third child.

“Finish up your homework and I’ll take you over there. We still have time.”

In the meantime, my husband, Skye, arrives home from work. I am not feeling well. A truck called James’ cold ran over me earlier in the day. I’m exhausted.  So I ask Skye, “Can you take Vincent over to the violin store to exchange his instrument?”

*cue dramatic music…Beethoven….something with drums…*

You know how when you blow up a balloon and you don’t tie the knot and then you let go and it goes all around the place in umpteen directions? It was like that. You could see Skye’s brain firing off reasons why he shouldn’t exchange the instrument. There’s a thing called commitment. How do you know you don’t want to play this instrument? What’s the real reason? Didn’t you try out all the instruments in the store first before picking this one?

“The store was packed, Skye. We had to take a number. There was no trying out instruments.”

“They said at the school meeting that you could try out different instruments.”

“We were number 17. There wasn’t any one-on-one personal care. The entire town of Upper Wonderful was there, getting their gifted child an instrument.”

This is still not acceptable. Skye sits in front of the computer and looks up the number to the store. He is an engineer and he likes to be thorough. He likes to try out every single item in the store before narrowing it down to three and then twirls for a half hour until he has completed his list of pros and cons for each before zeroing in on the one.

Trust me, it is a tedious process to shop with an engineer. But I would never purchase an appliance without him. He can juggle numbers in his head. He can estimate what we’ll pay to take the appliance home and what we’ll pay for the energy and water it uses for the next ten years, on each model. Most importantly, though, he can tolerate listening to the sales pitch while I wander about the store and touch everything, looking for the one that feels the nicest, and gives me the best “I want to go home with you” vibe.

“How long did you and Vincent discuss this instrument change?”

“One minute.” It reminds me of the time I bought the airsoft gun and he asked me what I taught the boys about gun safety before letting them shoot plastic pellets at 6 oz soda cans lined up on the stone wall in the backyard.

“You didn’t have a talk with him about commitment? I don’t want him to think it’s okay to switch instruments, or just quit at Christmastime.”

“Yea. Because we don’t want him switching colleges.”

This is the man who went to five colleges and finally graduated with a degree from two schools with two different majors because he couldn’t narrow it down.

I’m not one of those “drag in the old shit” debaters. Sometimes I have impulse control. But this I couldn’t resist. He set the ball and I spiked it over the net. Even he was impressed. I could tell. Had I been in a better mood I could have gotten him to laugh at himself. But I was running on two watts.

It’s especially hard to support his perspective on this because I’m coming from a whole different angle. I’m coming from the “good for you for listening to your gut and speaking up” angle. I’m proud of Vincent for bringing this up while we can still change instruments, rather than waiting until we were two weeks into the quarter before finally saying what he’d been feeling all along. It would be my job to go tell the orchestra teacher that Skye wanted to switch. I’d have to put on my very best shoes for that, not to mention take a shower.

After calling the store and barely hearing the clerk say, over the busy, screechy background sounds of multiple violins being played poorly all at once, “We’ll do our best, but this is our busiest time of year,” Skye finally understood why we didn’t have the opportunity to leave no string instrument unturned. Skye, Vincent, the bass, and the contract drove back to the violin store and returned an hour later with a viola.

Vincent carried his instrument inside and placed the small, black case on the living room floor. He opened the two latches, enjoying, I could tell, how much easier it is to get to the viola than it is the bass, and very carefully pulled it out in the reverse order it was put in. First the cloth over the strings, then the sponge that goes under his chin, then the instrument, then the bow.

I cried. It was so beautiful. The instrument. The boy. How happy he was. It didn’t look like he owned the bass, the way it looks like he owns this viola.

Skye conceded, “He really wanted something he could carry around the house.”

“Thanks for taking him over there. He’s much happier with this one. He wanted something he could be in charge of, not one he’d have to rely on other people for help getting it from here to there.”

The next morning, Vincent pulled the viola out of its case and walked around the house strumming, making up songs and asking me if I like them.

“This one is called ‘Story’,” he said, and played it twice, exactly the same way both times.

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