Free music downloads for the family
Recently my boyfriend and I took a trip to meet my family. Ben is tall, handsome, intelligent, and great with kids. Aside from one crazy aunt who tried to warn me about the evil glint in his eye, I knew that every other woman on my family tree would fall in love with him, and I desperately wanted their approval.
Ben came up with the plan. One on my aunts had a few little kids that were sweet and well-behaved. We would call and tell her that we had decided to go to the zoo and ask if she needed to take a break, we could handle the kids.
He called and my aunt Amber quickly agreed, but insisted that she would come anyways, since there wouldn't be enough room in just our five-person car.
When we got to her house we were greeted by twelve screaming kids under the age of ten. Turns out, she was not only watching her own four children, but her sister's eight. I was pulled into the kitchen to make a dozen sandwiches while Ben tried to calm the kids down enough to play some sort of game. When we finally left the house (an hour and a half later) Ben and I were to take four kids with us, double buckled into the car.
As we pulled out of the driveway, I found an old Disney album on my mp3 player, and turned on a song from Mary Poppins, satisfied that I at least had some kid music to make me seem cool. After a few minutes there was a little cough from the backseat. My five year-old cousin struggled to politely tell me that I had bad taste in music, and proceeded to list off the names of a dozen songs I had never heard of.
Her parents had taken to collecting several free music downloads a month, and listening to them in the car. The six year old that she was double buckled with then suggested that I turn off the radio, and the kids in back would just play a game. I didn't use free music downloads, and suddenly I was an outsider. An outsider among children who had just started elementary school, too!
First, the kids played name that tune. In this game Kaylie would hum the tune of a free music download and then look at me expectantly. I would try to stutter the name of a song she had listed ten minutes earlier, and she would shake her head in disappointment. Then the other children would correctly guess it. But the songs that had been obtained via free music downloads weren't all Indie bands, and on occasion she would hum something vaguely familiar. I would try to guess, they would shake their heads, and once, the three year old boy in the back seat put his hand on my seat and whispered the musicians name for me. Beyonce. My three year old cousin recognizes Beyonce?
These free music downloads were causing me a great deal of trouble. After a while Kaylie asked that I turn music on again, and said we could surf through the music until she heard something okay. After listening to the first ten seconds of 15 songs, she settled on Peter, Bjorn and John singing Young Folks and insisted that we listen to it on repeat until we reached the zoo, and the entire return trip.
The real pity is, we didn't win over the aunts, because the young folks just weren't satisfied, not with Ben, but with me.
About the Author:
Writing about travel is a fun hobbie of mine. It gives me excuses to take off on a random vacation to seek inspiration.