How it came to be that I own a Charlotte Church CD

For some reason I was buying a Chevelle CD at Wallmart… Oh yes, I was buying socks and underwear for my boys… So anyway, I find the Chevelle CD, pull it out, and there waiting behind my intended purchase were the big, sweet puppydog eyes of 14-year-old Charlotte. My eyes did that anime thing where they get really big and the pupils dilate and highlights overwhelm the surface area. “Awwwwww!” I said. “It’s SO cuuuuute.” I said “it” because even in the stupor that was overcoming me I could recognize that this was a cleverly fabricated product dressed in the peach wood-nymph dress; not a human. I turned the CD over and found an ivy-festooned glen replete with dappled light dancing across the cherubic face of the sweet little girl who reclined on the almost-real-looking log. Her dainty head atilt and comfortable in all her pulchritude.

“NO!” My rational side yelled at me. “You came for Chevelle! Remember your anger. Tap into your testosterone induced rage to resist the seductive powers of the aesthetic manipulators!” I tried to put it down, but to no avail. “You don’t even like that kind of music!”

Suddenly a tiny winged Charlotte Church appeared on my shoulder. I was about to tell her she should be ashamed for wearing so much makeup at that age when she interrupted. “You need to expand you musical tastes. Look at the fairy forest! Surly all the songs on this CD will fulfill the spirit that the package art evokes. Lush soundscapes and breezy choruses await you. Ephemeral chants and glowing melodies…”

I read the song list on the back. ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’… ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man’

“Wait a minute!” I retorted. “These don’t sound anything like what you’re telling me you tiny tempting slyph!”

“No wait! Look at that one… ‘Bali Ha’i’. That sounds exotic, doesn’t it?

“Well I guess so. But…”

“Huuuush.” She said to me as she placed her lilliputian finger over my lips in a propitiatory manner. “How about track two? Carrick… uh… furgus.” She said in a stilted cadence. (Because of course, since she was only a projection of my tergiversation she couldn’t possibly pronounce that word correctly on the first try.) “Yes, Carrickfurgus. Oooh. That sounds like a dark, gothic piece doesn’t it? Like an unreleased Rammstein track or something. I’m sure it’s just full of brooding majesty.” She said in the best German accent a tiny hallucinated English girl could muster. “Besides, even if you don’t like ALL the songs, I’m sure your children will love it. Don’t you want them to hear nice, pretty music? And look!” she almost squealed, “It’s on SALE!”

I sighed in resignation and slid ‘Enchantment’ by Charlotte Church under my pile of kids socks and underwear. Off to the checkout…