Birthday Present

do blatt do blatt

These noises ricochet up the stairs from the basement, the playroom where the drum set now resides.

dum digga digga digga digga

Everett is practicing, the last task on his list of daily must-dos: homework, make bed, put away clean clothes, feed the cats, etc.... Practice the drums.

dig-uh dig-uh duh

The drum kit was The Gift for his tenth birthday, the Biggest Birthday between birth and sixteen, the Double-Digits, the big one-oh.

bidda badda boom

And when your birthday falls two days after Christmas, your loved ones have to work extra hard to make sure your birthday feels Special, and Important, and, well, Special.

Crash!

Especially when you're turning ten. 10.

Trouble is, we forgot, when ordering the drum kit, to have it sent to Someone Else's Address. This would have been Smart. And it would have prevented What Happened, which was that we arrived home from school on a mid-December afternoon, and the UPS truck was just pulling away from the driveway, and the Middle Child Whose Birthday Was Quickly Approaching was the first one out of the van and asked me to toss him the house key on his way to the front door. And I didn't think anything of it.

So when he got to the bottom of the front steps, There Was the Drum Kit, in its box, with pictures of its contents all over said box for Everyone To See.

digga digga digga dum

We debated for a few hours. Do we put the kit away? Hide it in the storage room until December 27th and hope that he forgets about it? He's ten, not two. Tell him it was a mistake?

do-blatt do-blatt do-blatt do

No, we give him his Biggest 10th Birthday Present Early, so that he has it to enjoy Before Christmas, Before His Birthday.

bidda badda bidda badda bidda badda boom

I'll confess to being pretty darned disappointed with the way it all turned out. I wanted it to be this Grand 10th Birthday Surprise.

But he doesn't seem fazed by it in the least.

digga digga digga digga Crash!

No, as far as he's concerned, it's all good:

"Good night, San Francisco!"