So I've told you how much I enjoy my monthly visits to a nearby care center. I thought I should balance that story with this one.
When my kids were little I decided I would go to a rest home and play the piano during lunch hour for entertainment purposes. Yes. I was the Piano Man, serving up ballads at a bar. Only I wasn't a man and the rest home wasn't a bar. Also, unlike Billy Joel, I am a crap pianist. But still. I thought it was a generous gesture on my part to bring a little music! and sunshine! into the lives of people confined to a care center. Besides, I figured, the residents wouldn't a) notice or b) care that I stunk. They would just be grateful.
I made arrangements with a nearby rest home. I arrived at lunch hour and sat down at the piano in the cafeteria to play some tunes, not unlike that guy at Nordstrom who plays cocktail music while you're trying on shoes. Well. Pretty soon I noticed there was some shouting. AT ME. These two old guys sat at a nearby table like those muppets in the balcony and told me that I sucked.
TWO OLD GUYS: Hey! You stink!
Anyway. I never went back.
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8 comments:
There's rejection, and then there's rejection. LOL.
Tough audience. Old people are like young children, in that way. They don't give a fig for social subtleties and nuanced niceties. We do like alliteration, apparently.
Ann, you should write a ya novel about a girl who has to do community service (instead of go to juvy)at a retirement home.
I can't wait to be one of those old muppet guys, but a woman. That's why I practice my crankiness now. Practice makes perfect.
That's hilarious! It sounds like you've done all sorts of wonderful things to secure your place in celestial glory.
remind me to tell you sometime about the time my auntie and I went to play Christmassy duets in a like-spirited vein, and we were prancing along in high spirits, sounding pretty damn good if I do say so myself, whilst the residents were eating their Christmas cheer...and then this lady came up and said, "Could you play a little more quietly?" Because we were, apparently, interrupting their conversation. Which just made us start laughing so hard, which actually kind of affected the quality of our playing, oh well.
Love it. Once, and only once, on my mission the ward asked me to play the piano. After that they figured that accapella had to be better. And it was!
Waldorf and Stadler. Those are their names. You're welcome.
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