January 28: National Kazoo Day

I love National Kazoo Day with the childish glee of a sugar-high five-year-old.  As our first musical holiday, I'm just ecstatic that we managed to pick something that sounds like a cross between a melancholy duck and a long slow fart.  But, you know, with tone and pitch.

We didn't actually own any kazoos and it was Houston's version of an ice storm outside (you remember Houston's version of an ice storm - something also known as NOT REALLY AN ICE STORM).  Anyway, we weren't sure we wanted to leave the house just in case the lack of ice became sentient and attacked us or something.  Despite the real and present danger of simply existing somewhere with a temperature very slightly below 32 Fahrenheit, Justin braved the outside world and returned with a party package of kazoos and a comb.

It's a party in my mouth and... I'm not finishing that sentence

Why the comb?  Well, things got hairy for a while in there... pun intended... and we weren't sure we'd be able to find them in time.  So, because my family is awesome-sauce, my Uncle Carl recommended building a kazoo out of a comb and wax paper and I was instantly delighted that that possibility existed in the world.  Of course, we approached the playing of the kazoos with cautious moderation.

And quiet dignity.

Yeah - that's eight kazoos in my mouth.  What of it?  More importantly, it was a delightful learning experience.  For one, they were backwards and for two, the sound is made from vibrations in the kazoo so more than one or two and you can't form the sound the way you need to in order to make them play.  Once we set our sights on more reasonable goals (like playing a single kazoo), we were able to delight in their annoying annoying glory.

We walked around playing them for a while and doing our best and worst Donald Duck impressions before trying and terribly failing at the comb thing.  Like... failing.  Failing so hard I won't post a picture of it and you SEE what I'm willing to share on here.  If you want to fail hard at building a kazoo you can read up on it here.

Feeling we'd reached the pinnacle of our kazoo playing careers, we decided to release an electronic album, because that's what you do when you're no longer able to come up with your own music.

Still better than Nickelback.

Also, I spent the last whole hour of the night speaking in kazoo to Justin.  He has since hidden all of the kazoos, but I will find them and then EVERY DAY CAN BE KAZOO DAY!  Hooray for holidays built on being as annoying as possible.  Seriously though - it was a ton of fun because it was silly and lighthearted and goofy.  I enjoy snark with the best of them, but in all sincerity - the joy of these holidays is getting to be silly and that's been making every day better than the last.  We cannot wait for what the rest of the year brings!