I wish I’d written this truly inspired silliness,

if for no other reason than to have a plausible backstory explaining why I’ve never tickled the ivories to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on any of my parents’ anniversaries.

And so all this helicopter knowledge won’t go to waste.

When the massive injury on your left shin keeps you up all night in pain

PLUS in the middle of the night your right calf decides to get an epic charley horse (WTF? WHAT NON-PREGNANT PERSON GETS A CHARLEY HORSE?) and you’re so tired and sore in the morning that you cancel your lunch plans to try to get some sleep snuggled up on the couch and there’s fluffy snow outside your windows and Alexa is playing Beethoven’s ninth symphony and your mom makes your favorite bran muffins, THAT STILL DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU’RE MISERABLE WITH A SUGAR HANGOVER FROM EATING A DOZEN CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES AT LAST NIGHT’S CAST PARTY.

Orchestra Iowa intermission in my beloved Paramount Theatre!

We just heard Mozart’s sprightly, nimble (well, they’re all pretty nimble) Piano Concerto No. 21 (from house left row J on the aisle where I don’t think there’s any better vantage point in the city to watch the pianist’s nimble hands) and now we’re about to wallow in the glorious bombast of Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No. 5. And before the concert we both ATE KALE.

It doesn’t get any more Just Can’t Even than this!