T8a: How Headfones got her name.

Thing 8 is going to require multiple posts because there are all kinds of new tools I'm supposed to experience and sample. So at Picture Trail I created this lovely slideshow:

I love the filmstrip look in part because it reminds me of elementary school when it was a really big deal to be chosen to turn the filmstrip. The headphones just make me giggle. And with the headphones, it is time to tell the story.

One fall, I was hiking north of Duluth at Gooseberry Falls with my husband, our 6 month old daughter and our friend, Tonya. We had a great time seeing the waterfalls, looking at the rocks and just generally hiking all over. It was late October and it was cold.

As we finished up the hike, we decided to stop into the visitors' center and poke around in the gift shop. My husband was playing with our daughter, Tonya disappeared and I was drawn to the back of the shop where there was an enormous display of children's music. The display was shaped like an old tree, with a pair of headphones hanging off one of the branches. I put them on.

These were no ordinary headphones. These were huge, 70's style headphones that put the blue ones in my slide show to shame. They weighed as much as my daughter. Still, because I wanted to know if the music contained within that tree would be something for my daughter, I endured and pressed the play button.

Hmm, the music was a little muffled, so I turned the volume up. I could hear Tonya in the background, laughing. Laughing so hard it sounded like she was having trouble breathing. “She’s going to get us kicked out of here,” I thought to myself, turning the volume up. “How embarrassing.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned. My husband stood there and pantomimed removing the headphones. I gave him a funny look and lifted the headphones from my head.

So. The headphones were apparently broken. The music was blaring through the small store. I had been rocking out to really corny children's music with these gigantic headphones on, turning up the music so I could hear it. In fact, the headphones were acting like giant earplugs.

Really bad, 70's style earplugs.

True story. I’ve always been a little off when it came to technology. When Tonya finally stopped laughing, she asked me why I kept turning it up.

“It was a little muffled,” I had to admit. It was me. I was the embarrassing one.

And a nickname was born.