Will’s Thoughts | Stovetop Symphony

Will’s Thoughts about creating music with his stovetop symphony.

I love music. I love all types of music, from rock to rhapsody, and from swing to symphonic. Sometimes I like my music loud, and at other times I like music as soft as leaves being used by the wind to whisper lullabies. Music can excite me, making me want to dance and march, or with silken smoothness, soothe my soul. Music has always been a part of my life, and always will be. It has made me hum in elevators, and leap about my living room with wild abandon when no one is around. Music plays at the biggest turning points of our lives, from weddings to funerals, and what would entertainment today be without it?

The irony of my love for arrangements of all things audio, is that I neither carry a tune, nor do I have any semblance of rhythm. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. Just because I cannot sing, or keep a beat, it does not stop me from trying to. My vocal accompaniment to music ranges from guttural grunts, to screeching shrieks, in keys and pitches of no particular order, and in time to a mental metronome apparently connected to an alternate universe. My ability to stay in rhythm is exactly none, which compounds a stovetop percussive problem that drives Crazy Lady right around the bend. You see, I am afflicted with a strange mental illness that causes me to take virtually any kitchen utensil, and to turn it into a musical instrument.

For instance, frequently as I stand waiting for bread to toast, ‘Bolero’ (or one of the other 2.7 million tunes I’ve heard) begins to blast in my mind, causing the butter knife in my hand to begin to tap. First on the edge of the counter, then, as the psychotic symphony in my mind begins to come to a boil, on the toaster, sink, water tap, pot lids, coffee pot and stove. Each surface that is struck produces its own delightful music, with tonality changing as the beat travels up the sides to reach top. Plastic produces a muffled tinny tap, and pot lids produce snare drum quality with the residual resonance of a tuning fork. Kitchen cupboards produce an earthy tone, the coffee pot chimes and the fridge delivers an industrial element. As my stovetop symphonic stacatto builds to superstar proportions, it is natural for me to begin to sway to the musical madness. Soon, I am reduced to a leaping leprechaun, determined to make the most outlandish and irritating racket that the world has ever heard.

It is usually about this time that a grave sense of danger alerts me to a silent shape suddenly standing near me, anger radiating from it like a space heater turned on high. As my delusional eyes re-focus on reality, there stands Crazy Lady, optical orifices glowing and glowering. Standing with the body language of an executioner, impending doom washes over me as I begin to comprehend the level of madness that I have most recently driven her to. Sheepishly, I give one or two last taps to complete the crazed cosmic crescendo, then slink over to the toaster, quivering in fear, knowing full well what she is thinking of doing with the butter knife. Once she is confident that her fubar understands just how close to joining the paranormal he was, she glides back to her throne, as Bach’s music begins to bounce around in my brain, unknowingly, uncontrollably and unconsciously causing me to raise the knife once again…

Will’s thoughts prove that everybody has opinions, but he has way more than he should. From dogs that won’t stop barking, to the antics of his spouse, ‘Crazy Lady’, Will’s Thoughts will make you smile.