After our Goodwill shop, I went online and ordered a record player. No we didn’t have one. My son, who is autistic, wanted one. He likes vintage things.
It took a week to get to our house. He was so excited he had to open he package in the car. I know it’s a luxury, but it’s a luxury that he deserves…that I deserve. We had a hard year. We are facing inumerable hard years ahead. We deserve a small amount of joy. Some records and a record player for less than $100 is years of joy. Some people spend that a month on their games or streaming services.
We got home and he cleared off a shelf in my room. It’s the only room in the house with space for the record player. We played Tammy Wynette. He put the other records on the bookshelf where they will now permanently live.
The reason I purchased the records and record player is the same reason I purchase DVD’s and a dvd player. It’s inexpensive compared to online media where renting a stream for 12 hours can be as much as $3, when red box used to rent dvd’s for $1. Now days I can buy dvd’s for $1 each. I can buy records for $3 each. I can get VHS for free…but good luck finding a player. I can get used books for free.
Should our income get tight, I can turn off the internet and still have entertainment for Illyan. We can watch or listen to our media as many times as we want, for as long as we want, without having to play just to hear it again on top of the electric to make it work. That is how they snookered your money away. They taught you to give up what you owned for a temporary pleasure. It’s a return to paying to go to the movies, only now you supply the theater and pay for the privilege of every film over and over again. The difference is in the past the theater at least paid to keep you cool and use the restroom. They outsourced that part to you.
Tonight we enjoyed the sound of the hiss and pop with music rolling out loudly in a tiny room. The record player didn’t like the old wavey and huge records, but I put the needle down hard enough. No scratches resulted, but Illyan flinched at the sound. Then he wiggled around the room as he listened to the hot country beat. It was a wonderful way to end a hot day.