I’m the only woman I know who even owns noise-canceling headphones. I got them as a gift. From my husband, of course

I’m the only woman I know who sits at the vanity applying makeup while wearing noise-canceling headphones.

Actually, I’m the only woman I know who even owns noise-canceling headphones. I got them as a gift. From my husband, of course.

He has a gift too. He was born with it — the gift of music.

I don’t exactly remember if I knew about this when we were dating. If I did, I probably thought, oh, wow, so nice, with a vague vision of 12 sons and daughters sitting around the Shabbos table and singing zemiros in harmony from leather embossed bentshers, while I gracefully carry in a tray of steaming golden soup. In the vision, I’m wearing an elegant Shabbos robe, my sheitel, and pearls. I’m not wearing noise-canceling headphones.

My children inherited my husband’s gift. We now own a professional-grade keyboard, two flutes, an acoustic guitar, a child-size acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, an acoustic drum set, and an electric drum set. We have more musical instruments than kids.

We also have rules. Like “no drums before 8 a.m.” and “two people playing music at the same time in the same room must play the same song.” Every family is unique. Right?

Which brings me to the piano.

When we moved into our house, I pointed at a seven-foot stretch of wall separating the dining room and kitchen and said to my husband, “One day, we’ll put a piano there.” From then on, we called it the Piano Wall.

Just to clarify, when I said “piano,” I was referring to a proud upright piano in highly polished black lacquer, with white ivory keys glowing against the mysterious black ones. There may even have been an elegant crystal chandelier hovering above it.

There was no sound in this dream.

Our family grew, and the dream faded. Or I should say, our family grew, our collection of musical instruments grew, the average decibel level grew, and the dream faded. I stopped talking about getting a piano.

I also stopped buying toys that make noise. If other family members gave my kids such toys, I made them disappear. Or at least, I never bought batteries.

Then one day I came home and my husband said, “Guess what!”

I could not guess.

“My parents are giving us their piano!”

First I said nothing.

Then I said, “But why? They love that piano!”

Then I said, “It costs a lot to move a piano.”

Then I said, “Where are we going to put it?”

“Right here at the Piano Wall,” he said, like it was obvious.

I decided to say nothing else. Probably the whole thing would blow over soon.

My husband called Piano Movers Incorporated. Then he called Reliable Movers. Then he called 1-2-3 Move It. No one wanted to move a piano.

“So disappointing!” I said in relief.

In the vision, I’m wearing an elegant Shabbos robe, my sheitel, and pearls. I’m not wearing noise-canceling headphones

It’s not that I didn’t want a piano. It’s that we have kids. And I’ve known them for a few years already. If we got a piano, I was going to spend my whole life saying, “No climbing on the piano,” and “No banging on the piano,” and “Whoever doesn’t move away from the piano right now gets an empty threat.”

My husband didn’t understand. Music is a gift. It adds so much to life. It’s creative, and expressive, and even, in a deep way, spiritual. Not like other, more mundane talents. (Like writing, for example.)

The piano arrived. It was a wooden walnut color, large and worn. Maybe I could still get a chandelier.

When the movers left, my oldest sat down at the piano and touched a key. He tipped his head and touched another key. Then he played Joey Newcomb’s “Thank You Hashem.”

Wow. I guess.

But then everyone else wanted a turn, and the results weren’t quite as musical. The acoustics in the room are great. Or terrible. Depends how you look at it. And the piano has no volume control. It gets loud. Very loud. Especially when the kids who aren’t currently playing on the piano start crying that they want to be.

Amazon sells piano locks for $101. A bargain. Except they aren’t actually locks, they’re really just clamps. Whoever invented them clearly never met my kids.

“The only way to keep anything away from the kids in this house is to hang it from the ceiling,” my husband concluded.

I slipped my noise canceling headphones over my ears and went to look at chandeliers.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 783)