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Sometime in third grade, my music teacher called my parents to inform them that I was gifted. I showed a strong aptitude for music, she said, urging them to get me lessons in anything I wanted — didn’t matter what it was, just as long as I started playing something.

I’ll never know why, but I picked the viola. Perhaps I decided it was cooler than the other instruments — violins were too common, cellos too girly, the stand-up bass too intimidating. And I really couldn’t handle any instrument that involved spit. We went to the rental store and, due to my small size, I went home with a violin custom-fitted with viola strings. I was sure that I was destined for the musical greatness my music teacher imagined.

When I wasn’t at lessons with a lady who was shorter than I was, I practiced at home in the living room, right inside the front door. The family didn’t hang out there, there was a family room for that (NOTE: I could have these labels wrong — I never knew the difference between a living room and a family room, all I know is there’s a room where everyone watches TV and there’s usually a room where furniture exists but nobody really goes there, which is where I was). In this room there was a stand-up piano, my parents’ AM/FM receiver/8-track-player/turnable combo stereo, a couch and my parents’ nice dining table, which later would be the computer desk for our Apple II+. The doorway to the hall which led to the rest of the house was decorated with those hanging wooden beads that people liked a lot in the 70s.

Before long, practice began to bore the living shit out of me. I just couldn’t handle playing the same, simple notes over and over, and I was pissed that I wasn’t immediately capable of playing “Orange Blossom Special.” Patience never has had a large hold on my life. I was supposed to stay and practice for a set amount of time, so leaving to play in my room or outside was not an option.

But I was alone in there … alone with the stereo. It was only a matter of time before I started putting my KISS records on the turntable, setting the volume just right so my parents wouldn’t hear them from the family room, and turning the room into Detroit rock city. As the afternoon sun crept in through the giant windows, I would rockingly transform from a 9-year-old trying to figure out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into Gene Simmons, jumping around the living room jamming on my faux viola as imaginary columns of flame shot up around me and (during “God of Thunder”) blood spewed from my mouth. I stomped around like I had demon boots on my feet, cranking on my viola/guitar as I tried to keep it from getting nicked by my “Destroyer” belt buckle. If only Mom had let me get that thing under my tongue cut (I asked) I would be an unstoppable rock god.

One day she walked in on me. She did not see an intimidating rock god; she saw her kid tossing away money spent on lessons and instrument rental. She was not impressed that I was refining my rock star stage moves, especially when I still couldn’t play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” very well. We had a talk, and soon the viola/violin mutant was on its way back to the music store. Lessons were canceled, and I was free. (The concerts eventually continued in my room with Giant Tinkertoys.)

Except for a brief stint with a drum pad a few years later, I never tried to learn an instrument again. Sometimes I wonder if my music teacher was right, if I would be rocking for a living if only I had stuck to the lessons. A musical genius fallen victim to the short attention span of a 9-year-old.

Nah … I don’t think I have any musical skills. I can’t even sing (unless we’re talking Kajagoogoo karaoke), even though that never keeps me from torturing the newsroom with my channeling of Ethel Merman.

No, I suspect my music teacher called the parents of every child to let them know them their kid has an incredible musical talent and should receive lessons immediately. She’s probably still doing it! Hundreds of kids are dragging their parents to the music store to rent instruments they’ll never play. Meanwhile, my music teacher is in some dark alley, at a designated location, picking up two carefully hidden boxes in plain brown paper wrappers stuffed with cash … left behind by the music-store owner and the little music-lessons lady.