Thursday, November 10, 2016

Off Key

Lucy was a lovely woman who was completely tone deaf. Her experiences with vocal groups rarely lasted more than a week. She traveled the country, staying in flophouses, taking minimum wage jobs, living in poverty, hoping one chorus would accept her.
Finally she threw in the towel, went to secretarial school and became a legal secretary, and eventually a paralegal. One of the lawyers where she worked loved musical theater and often went to piano bars. One day he asked if she would accompany him. Frozen with fear, Lucy fevered over whether her old urge would return and she would be humiliated.
Finally she accepted and that night there they stood around the piano as the man attacked the keys. George launched into a spirited 'Oklahoma'. People ran out screaming. The pianist abandoned his instrument and the bartender and waitress huddled in a back room.
Lucy thought it sounded beautiful.
George kept singing, one song after another a capella, and in the process, broke several EPA laws.
Lucy and George married and moved to a farm far off in the hintwerlands. They sing to each other all day, every day.
The farm animals, one by one, are committing suicide.

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