Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb...Drum!

Recently, we completed a time-honored ritual of the season -- moving Uncle Elmo's possessions from his garage to our home so Mommy can help him sell them. This event happens many times throughout the year, predicated on Uncle Elmo's knack for acquiring stuff, Aunt Sully's lack of time, and Mommy's bizarre sense of enjoyment derived from selling other people's things. Whenever a truckload (yes, a truckload) of Uncle Elmo's sellable junk makes it into our home, it's the household equivalent of binge-and-purge buffet time for the Texas cheer-leading squad: Mommy's and Daddy's garage fills with an abundance of furniture, books, electronics, toys, and more, thereby satiating any desire we may have to acquire. It's immediately followed by Mommy selling everything she can, leaving us with a sense of cleansing as the space and order is once again restored.

Amongst the little gems in the most recent batch of soon-to-be-on-craigslist.com treasures-for-sale was a drum and cymbal set. This was a gift to Cousin Oscar for one of his birthdays a couple of years ago from his grandmother. We suspect that parental wisdom is what drove the drum set into Uncle Elmo's garage, where it's sat gathering dust since that summer birthday long ago.

One dark and stormy night (this past Saturday), Daddy, Uncle Elmo, and Mommy unloaded everything into the garage while Helios and Hesperos munched on some no-longer-recalled Veggie Booty in the kitchen. Aroused by the din, Helios cracked the garage door and peeked out. His saucer-sized eyes glazed over with the heady rush of "this is too good to be true" sensation (reminding me of that one time we took Daddy's brothers, Helios' uncles, Scooter and Agrippa to downtown Tempe, AZ when they got a look at the local college co-eds) and exclaimed "DRUM SET!" with a war cry that Braveheart would envy.

Running to the object of his desire, Helios scurried around looking for the drum sticks he knew was there, with some kind of 3-year-old intuition that much occur whenever something loud or potentially destructive is available. Finding only one (which is all he needed), Helios proceeded to circle the drum set like a predatory bird, striking with enthusiasm at every rim, disc, and cymbal.

The drum set will still definitely be sold (it'd be a shame to deprive another family of the barely-muffled enthusiasm we experience through the garage walls), but for the next few days, we think we can delay the sale.