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Monday, January 17

revisiting the old flag spanker

We're in the car one recent evening and listening to the radio. It's a feel-good story about an eight-year-old girl who was performing a certain song at a minor league hockey game in Virginia when the mike cut out on her high note and everyone in attendance helped her finish the song. (You might be one of the four million people have seen the video by now, in which case, you have already guessed the punchline.)

So I'm getting a little teary-eyed as I am wont to do, because it's a nice story and those hockey fans all just sound like a veritable chorus of angels descended unto earth, when Raphael, who unbeknownst to me has apparently this whole time been getting more and more frustrated at a failure of memory, blurts out, "What is this SONG?!"

"What is this SONG?" I ask incredulously.

"It's a Christmas song, right?"

"It's not a Christmas song!"

"What is it?"

"You took a TEST on this!"

"What IS it?!"

I'm laughing now instead of sobbing, so that's nice, but considering that it's probably the most universally recognized song in the United States, on top of the fact that Raphael has a history of having no idea what it is, it still takes me a minute to get out: "It's the Star-Spangled Banner!"

For the record, Raphael still can't wrap his mind around the word "spangled".

3 comments:

Mary Rose said...

HaHAHAAAAA! Too funny. I agree, "spangled" is a bizarre word. Do we ever use it in regular conversation? Plus, I find pronouncing G's difficult....

Jenny said...

I think you and Raphael would get along. Alon-GGG. (Hmm - it's hard to spell what I'm doing with that G-sound. I'm making a hard G sound and accentuating it to help you pronounce it in your brain as you read this comment.)

Mary Rose said...

Thanks, JJ. I am laughing at myself as I am mangling words with g's in my brain!