The Binary-Codz

My daughter purchased “Rock Band 2” several days ago. We finally set it up tonight. There were several reasons for the delay, one of which was that it’s nearly Christmas and I was considering commandeering it for a Christmas gift for her. My husband felt that this was not a good idea because Christmas is about surprises and she already knew that she had this so it couldn’t be a Christmas gift. (OK…That explains some of the scary gifts I’ve received during the past 25 years, although I’ve loved every one of them!) I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d been helping me pick out her own gifts since she was four. However, the real “bug in the ointment” as it were, was that she had paid for it. All by herself. With birthday money she’d received in June. Being an astute reader you probably thought, “Hey, if she already paid for it, and you are keeping it from her, then you are stealing.” You’re wrong, and if you keep that up you’ll lose your “astute reader” status…I didn’t steal it. I was…um … protecting it while it became acclimated to our house… atmosphere…because we live on a hill….

The other glaring reason that I did not want to open the Rock Band Monster is that…you may have experienced this yourself…upon careful observation (I mean here that Meghan pointed it out to me) I came to realize that it has three instruments and thus the immediate opportunity to humiliate up to three people at a time. Not to beg the issue too much; Meghan is an only child. If you do the math, that means two more “instruments” would need “filling” by “someone.” The “someone” that instantly came to mind as I stood in Sam’s looking at the box, is well over 40, never played any of the potential “instruments,” and is terminally Caucasian, which here means that each molecule making up this person’s body has a crucial bit of DNA that not only doesn’t provide rhythm but actually sucks up anything that might seem like rhythm and ejects it from the body—by force, if necessary. And, honestly, there are days when I feel really sorry for Kevin because of it. OK…I’m just kidding in that Kevin’s not the only rhythmically-challenged middle-aged person in the house. But I color my hair, so you can’t tell.

So, last night, sure enough, I was coerced into “participating.” She named us the "Binary-Codz." I got the mic because Meghan wanted to be a guitar hero and Kevin was a guy which somehow meant he was best qualified to play drums. I will not give you the gory (and I use this word with kindness and accuracy here) details, but let it be said that my nephew was “listening in” on Megh’s headset as I wailed away on “Spirit In the Sky” and his only comment was, “Who is that…singing?”

Just wait until we get “Jesus, Take the Wheel” at: marjoybryan@gmail.com