Bongos for a Buck?

Allie and I were at the dollar store on Sunday.

I get the appeal of these places and my greed is enough to get me through the doors. However, once I'm in there I don't want to stay long.

I'm not snobby. I love buying junk and buying junk for just a dollar is even better. But I get depressed when I walk up and down the aisles. It's like wandering though the Island of Misfit Toys. Nobody wants a Charlie-in-the-Box. . . Well, nobody wants a year-old bottle of off-brand ketchup from Romania either. Or at least I don't want it.

I think Allie had the same feeling about the store. She slowed down to look at the racks of toys but didn't really linger over any of the day-glo, molded plastic playthings. She just cocked her head trying to figure out how a pink "Bubble Sword" would fit into her play repertoire. I made the same move when we got to the set of six corn-on-the-cob butterers. Neither of us had too hard of a time walking away from these items.

The only thing Allie was interested in was a green plastic chew toy for her sister, Julia. Julia is successfully teething right now which makes going in after all the small objects she jams in her mouth a dangerous proposition. Allie and I both agreed this toy would be a better thing to have in Julia's mouth than all the other crap that's been in there. This weekend, for example, I pulled out a very dirty, very old Cheerio, two metallic stickers, part of an envelope, part of a grocery receipt and a length of pizza crust that unexpectedly turned sideways on her.

After half-an-hour in the dollar store, reviewing hundreds of value priced products, the only thing we chose was the green plastic chew toy for Julia. Allie and I made our way to the cashier and noticed a line snaking all the way down the tool aisle. There was only one cashier working (crazy low prices; crazy low overhead). The people in the line ahead of us had carts filled with stuff. I looked at the chew toy and realized it wasn't worth the wait. I was expecting a fight from Allie when I told her we were going to put her gift for Julia back on the shelf, but she just shrugged.

We were both happy to get out of there and wound up in a music store. Allie was fairly patient as I pulled guitar-after-guitar off the wall and played the same licks she's heard me play time-and-time again. Just when Allie started squirming she noticed some violins on the wall. She begged me to show them to her. We walked over and I chose the most beat-up violin they had (just in case).

I tried to play the thing and only got squeaks and growls of protest from the instrument. I handed Allie the bow and held the little violin in front of her. She dragged the bow across the strings and produced a perfect, clean, sweet sounding note.

Whoa.

I thought it was a fluke. After all, I couldn't get the thing to sound like that. I took the bow from Allie and tried again. I made a noise that sounded like I was trying to saw the thing in half. I handed the bow back to Allie. Once again she reproduced the same perfect note. I started fingering the string and we played a nice, simple song together.

Images of all of those Suzuki Method tykes flashed through my head. Standing tall among them was my four-year-old who is obviously a prodigy. She must have this violin! I looked at the price. $299. Crud. I'm sure Mozart's Dad didn't have the dough for his son's first harpsichord, but he found a way. It was time for me to make the same sacrifice for my kid.

So I gave the little violin a good going over, trying not clue Allie in on the fact that I was thinking of buying it for her. As I was looking at it I handed it over to Allie. I tried to show her how to tuck it under her chin. Holding the bow, shoving the violin under her chin and twisting her left hand to support the neck of the instrument was too much for her to take. She whined a little and then almost, accidentally, dropped the violin on the floor.

Okay.

Suddenly the little bongos over in the next aisle looked pretty cool.