Next Tuesday, I get to wear a heart monitor for twenty-four hours. Contrary to what a certain piano student’s parent may think, this is not an attempt to find out if I really possess a heart.
(People get so touchy this time of year. All I did was tell her kid that her performance of “Oh, Christmas Tree” sounded like it was played by a chimpanzee on acid. I was holding back, because I’m sensitive that way. What I did not say was that the chimpanzee was wearing boxing gloves and the piano was tumbling down a fire escape. I don’t know about you, but in my profession we call that a “teaching moment”.)
Anyway, the purpose of the monitor is to determine why my heart beats like it was leading a conga line. Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha--KICK! Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha--POW! Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha--BLAM!
While the rest of me cools its heels in Las Vegas, evidently my heart winters in Rio.
Should be fun. And it has given me an idea for a whole new Etsy shop, which is a term I don’t understand at all but see everywhere in blogland.
In my shop, I would sell monitors for diagnosing all sorts of health problems, starting with:
- The Common Sense Monitor. Disguised as one of those ‘Heidi of the Swiss Alps’ snow hats all the teenagers are currently wearing, this monitor would help explain why a certain 14-year old thought that riding a twin mattress atop a piano dolly down a steep neighborhood street would end any way other than abruptly and full of gravel and wall.
- The Self-Awareness Monitor. Resembling mirrored sunglasses but with the mirrors inside the lenses, this tool is useful for understanding that one woman in every ward who starts conversations with phrases like, “Oh, hey, your skin is finally clearing up.” If you don’t know anyone who does this, then it’s you.
- The Gas Bag Monitor. I have a couple of people in my Gospel Doctrine class who could use this. It’s worn like a surgical mask, and any time the patient clears his throat, an alarm sounds and the person sitting next to him beats him senseless with his own Blackberry.
- The Quarter-note to Sixty Monitor. This one is my personal favorite. Based on the movie “Speed”, this monitor is actually placed on the chapel organ, and when any ward organist plays “I Believe in Christ” at a tempo that has turtles checking their watches, thus turning the singing of the intermediate hymn into a three-day event requiring snack vendors and port-a-johns, the monitor would trigger an explosion blowing the chorister and the organist and the High Council speaker to kingdom come.
Unlike me, you have a heart.
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DeNae is a Humorist, essayist, public speaker, free-lance editor, and all-around
swell gal or at least relatively harmless. She's lived
all over creation despite her certainty that she would never leave her hometown.
Clearly, the life she signed up for has been on backorder for 27 years.
Good thing she's loving this 'loaner' while she waits for FedEx to deliver
the real one! You can follow DeNae on her blog My Real Life was Backordered
