Eldritch Jolene; or, On This Day One Year Ago
So, this is the part where I confess my love for Facebook's "Your Memories" feature, where it regurgitates something you posted on this day any number of years ago. I'm using my FB account almost not at all anymore and this feature is definitely why I haven't deleted it entirely, because it keeps reminding me about cool stuff my child did and said which I posted about during his development.
Without further ado, here is what went on on September 7th, 2018:
So the Small One informed me that he has a plan:
He's going to learn how to sing the tune of Jolene, by Dolly Parton “pwoperly”, and then we record him singing it with these HP Lovecraft-inspired verses, and then we put the video on his video reel for his Backstage account.
And now I'm going to tell you how my nine-year-old came to this insanely hilarious, but very true plan, almost totally independently.
Back over summer vacation, Small One was in an independent film as an extra. Well, he liked that, so we applied for more no-pay extra roles like that, though at that time he showed zero interest in acting (as in, actually saying lines.) He began to get more interested, to the point that he started asking me if we could see if there were any new listings for him to apply to in our Backstage account. The next one that got back to us accepted him as a "Child Partygoer" in a birthday party scene.
Then, they got back to me and said, essentially, “We’d actually like to try him out for this supporting role he looks right for. Does he have a Child Performer Permit? He has to because he’d be paid.”
So I looked at my Small One, and he at me, and I asked him what he thought about all this. “CAN I BUY BEYBLADES IF I GET PAID AND I ALSO PUT SOME MONEY IN MY 'SAVING-UP-TO-SAVE ACCOUNT'?!” was his ...immediate... response.
So I told them that he does not have the permit yet, but that I’d be happy to obtain one. Then, they sent me all the info on how you do that and what forms I need and asked me to let them know when he has the permit.
I've gone out and had forms for this permit filled in by his school and doctor, and opened a bank account which I THINK was the right type to open to get him the permit.
When I updated him on all this, and explained the reason for 15% of anything they pay him going into this account and the other 85% going into his savings account, he immediately and totally independently started forming a slightly more complex and wordy version of this plan:
“So, 15% will go into the ‘twust account’ for when I’m a grown up, maybe for my wetirement, and out of the rest I will put this much in my saving-up-to-save account, this much in my saving-up-to-spend jar, and I will be able to get a new Beyblade, and then I’ll give some to you. For the went!”
...This kid. This kid...
His attitude about it currently is, “Hmmm... it COULD be like getting paid to play pretend. LET’S TWYYYY!”
And the punchline as far as I am concerned, is that after I read a thing on Facebook proposing to add some hilarious HP Lovecraft-inspired additional verses to the song Jolene by Dolly Parton, and after he made me play him the song so he could hear the notes, and AFTER I said that I wanted to get a friend to play the guitar so I could record a version of the song with those verses... ... ...
My son, my 9-year-old son, hatched a plan to impress prospective casting directors with an Lovecraft-inspired rendition of "Jolene" by Dolly Parton.
I'm going to die like the Weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit... this is definitely my child!!!!
So if anyone hears my child humming off-tune about “the Eldritch One... JOLENE,” ... now you will know why.
