I Want……….A Pony!

 

 

This was written in forty-three minutes listening to the following tune eleven times.    Feel free to cue it up as you read.     Or don’t.   Your choice.   People like choices.     This is Deer Tick:    “Art Isn’t Real”.     Enjoy

 

 

 

Last evening at 7:00 p.m., while I was on a business call in my hotel room, I heard the following being sung outside my hotel room.   Loudly and off key.

“The sun will come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow
there’ll be sun
Just thinking” about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till’ there’s none

When I’m stuck in the day that’s gray and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say oh

The sun will come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on
till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You’re only a day away!

When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say….

The sun will come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow
You’re only a day away

Tomorrow, tomorrow I love you tomorrow
You’re always a day away ………..ayayayayayayayayayayayyyyyyy”

That “away ………..ayayayayayayayayayayayyyyyyy” spelling above is neither exaggerated nor misspelled.   I asked the people on the other line to please hold, muted the phone, opened the door (right about when she hit “bet your bottom dollar”) and saw a slightly built (yet powerfully voiced) seven year girl standing down in the middle of the courtyard, belting out some “Annie”, I would have gotten video, but I had three people muted and on hold on my phone….while watching one of the most magnificent performances of that “Annie” tune in the history of mankind.

 

To get the full effect, you have to understand the layout of this particular hotel.     I’m on the fifth floor of eight floors and in the middle of the hotel is a faux courtyard. Each room exits out onto a catwalk-like thing that circles the courtyard and she was on the lobby floor, looking skyward, and belting it out. Needless to say, the acoustics are quite solid.   Here’s where she was.

 

More specifically, she was right where that yellow “floor wet, do not slip” sign is.   They may have put that yellow sign there as an homage to her performance.

 

 

Next to her was her six (ish?) year old sister, staring at her with that wide eyed wonderment that generally only a six year old has for most all things in life.   That was as cool as the girl singing….loudly, off key, and proudly.   Three feet away were mom and dad.   Mom was giggling and dad was hugging mom and smiling.   That was as cool as the six-year-old sister looking up in wide-eyed wonder at her older sister.

 

This morning, I took the service elevator down to breakfast with the seventy (ish) year old London couple here for their first visit ever to the United States.   We took the service elevator because two of the three elevators in the center of the courtyard are out for service and as we stood there waiting for several hours to go downstairs, the seventy year old woman (pointing at her husband) said “I’VE been taking the damn service elevator down instead of waiting, but THIS one here won’t use it.”   I replied “I’ll most certainly use that service elevator with you”, which prompted her seventy year old husband to jump right in with a “me too!”

 

On the way down in the service elevator, after reminding them that we beat the British back in 1776, 1777, and 1778, I asked them about the first thirteen days of their trip and the woman regaled me with tales of Chicago, Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, and everything in between.   She had the same wide-eyed wonder look in her eye as the six year old as she described everything they saw on a trip they had planned together for forty years.

 

I loved the parent because they stood back, watching and smiling, for the full four minutes.   I loved that seventy year old woman because she retained the wide-eyed wonder that she had at six.     Each were wonderful to watch.

 

 

 

 

A phrase far superior to “God bless you” when someone sneezes, “have a nice day” when you walk away from seeing a friend, or “have a great trip” when someone is going on vacation would be “may you see the world through the eyes of a six year old”.   Because seeing the world through the eyes of a six year old…..each and every day….would be quite cool.   Quite cool, indeed.

My forty-ninth birthday is around the corner and I love being 48.93 today.   Moreover, I look forward to being 49 and then 50 because each year brings the most interesting people and things into my aquarium.     For example, a seven-year-old girl belting out “Annie” tunes in the lobby of a hotel while her family cheers her on.   These are the things that I have wished for each birthday, from my first year to this past year………

 

1. A pony
2. A pony
3. A pony
4. A pony
5. A pony
6. A pony
7. Two ponies
8. A pony
9. A pony
10. A pony
11. A pony
12. John Travolta’s white suit from “Saturday Night Fever”
13. A pony
14. A pony
15. A pony
16. A pony
17. A pony
18. A pony
19. A pony
20. A pony
21. A pony
22. A pony
23. A pony
24. A pony
25. A pony
26. A pony
27. A pony
28. A pony
29. A pony
30. A pony
31. A pony
32. A pony
33. A pony
34. A pony
35. A pony
36. A pony
37. A pony
38. A pony
39. A son
40. A pony
41. A pony
42. A pony
43. A pony
44. A pony
45. A pony
46. A pony
47. A pony
48. A pony

 

Clearly my wish for a pony will never come true.   For my 49^th birthday my wish will be to look at the world with the eyes wide open of a six year old for a full twenty-four hours.   That’s better than a pony.   Much, much better than a pony