Happy B-Day...you old drumstick thrower.

My sister had a birthday yesterday, I called her at 7:05 a.m. and sang happy birthday on her voicemail, then reminisced about dumb games her and I used to play in the back of the car when on road trips with our folks.  (Yeah, this was one of those annoying voice mails that goes on and on)

There are things about your childhood you just don't forget, like the backseat games, fighting with Sally every Sunday after church and playing my drums at the time when it would be most annoying to her..etc.

Growing up my drum set was in the basement in the family room, where we did most of our TV watching.  Steph has never had the experience of a drum set in the house until last week, she let me purchase my first set of acoustics since my old set was basically worn out and sold years before we were married.

I set up the new kit on Sunday, but haven't had a ton of time to tune it and play it so my level of annoyance has been minimal.  Each time I have played I always ask, "I wasn't too loud was I?"  Steph always says, "no, I liked it."  Maybe it isn't that loud in our house or maybe Steph is super deaf, but I keep having flashbacks of the "stick throwing incident of 1987" and I have been trying to not re-enact that event.

REWIND to 1987, I'm sure I was wearing a Nike shirt with my name on the back, had long hair and "Bermuda" shorts...the home speakers were blasting Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, Stryper, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Whitesnake or something like that, and I was playing along on my drum set...LOUD AND PROUD.  (To this day I can't believe Penny never told me to be quiet) 

Sally would have been wearing something teal and purple with leg warmers and big hair, and she was sitting on the couch.  The unwritten rule was first one in the room gets honors to the remote (I actually broke a toe one time racing her to the remote), or if I'm playing first she would have to live with it.  But this day in 1987 I decided to break the rules, and play the drums while she was watching re-runs of Little House.  There must have been drum sticks laying all over the floor, and she grabbed one and said, "if you don't quit playing I'll chuck this at you!"  I kept playing, and she Nolan Ryan'd that thing straight at my melon.

I don't recall if it hit me, glanced off me or hit the drums first then hit me, but I called her bluff and she threw down the royal flush, and it hit me in the head.  I had just been told by a science teacher that if you get hit in the temple you could die instantly, and armed with that knowledge I proceeded to cry out this phrase that has lived on, "YOU, sniff, COULD, sniff, HAVE, sniff, HIT, sniff, ME, sniff, IN THE TEMPLE!"

Well, it didn't hit me in the temple, and I stopped playing long enough for her to see Laura win the spelling test and save Walnut Grove from a blizzard.  I have to think at some point Steph will walk into the room and chuck something at me in order for me to stop playing...just to make Sally happy.

To be honest I think it was that traumatic day that kept me from making big as a drum rock star.