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| Happy sounds London, ON March 2020 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
Christopher Walken (as Bruce Dickinson)
Saturday Night Live, April 2000
As you can see here, we have a cowbell. My late in-laws inexplicably bought it on a visit to The Alamo when my wife was a munchkin. And as we were cleaning things out of their condo, this kitschy old brown bell somehow made it into one of the boxes we carted back to London.
Just as inexplicably, this cowbell showed up on the dining room table as I set up my very ad hoc COVID-19-safe home office earlier this week. It's been sitting on my laptop ever since.
Periodically, and much to my limitlessly patient wife's chagrin, I'll pick it up and ring it. I'm not sure what motivates me to do so. But deep in my convoluted brain, there's a synaptic flash from decades ago, when my in-laws were perhaps younger than I am now. I imagine my father-in-law finding the cowbell and giving it a ring with an understated grin on his face. And I imagine my MIL shaking her head in mock annoyance. Or maybe it's real annoyance. It almost doesn't matter.
What does indeed matter is that a ridiculous piece of family history makes me - and occasionally our kids - smile at a time when we could all use more excuses to do so. I wish I could go back in time and thank them both for planting the seed for a future moment of brightness.
Whatever "stuff" you may have floating around the house, I hope you'll find something and think, hard, about the stories it could tell. I promise you it'll make you feel better.
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