I learned an important lesson today:
Little pitchers do have big ears.
I was laying quietly in my room this afternoon, studying. It was a lovely day; the air was voluptuous with that scent that can only mean the onset of summer. I imagined the bliss of cool, chlorinated water and Italian ices in the evening, pick-up basketball at midnight and the whir of crickets resonating throughout the plains. The comfort of crisp sheets after a sultry day.
My thoughts were interrupted when my sister, in her fifth year, knocked on my plain brown door. Gingerly, carefully, she traversed the floor of my bedroom; stepping over heaps of unkempt clothing and the permeation of Teenage Girl. With a carriage that only a young child can muster, she cleared her throat and announced-
"I have just made a NEW song. For when I am a star. Would you like to hear it?"
Of course, I obliged (Erik Erikson's psychology and the awareness that I had to reward her efforts of Industry won over my lesser instincts to kick her out in sisterly squalor.) Her most rhapsodic lyrics:
Baaabbbbyyyy I wanna lovvvvvee you (Yeah, Yeah!)
I just want to hold your hannnnnnd (Yeah, Yeah!)
I know you looooovvveee meee toooo (Yeah, Yeah!)
But you gotta go ta WORRRRRKKKKK! (Yeah, Yeah!)
I love you soo much (Yeah, Yeah!)
But work just SUCKS (Yeah, Yeah!)
I can't wait to hold your HAAAANNNNND!
I was shocked! My sister's opus was, unfortunately, the amalgam of what she has been exposed to- my mother's constant whining about the banality of school administration, my pounding of the snooze button when faced with another day of my magnet high school. Neither of us have been happy this year, she chose to channel this observation into an off-key country song. I had to laugh, but I can't help but wonder if my brutish insolence will color her perceptions of work and love in the years to come.