Here’s something else about my mother: I truly believe that she was the worst singer in the entire history of our planet. If she wasn’t the worst, she was definitely in the top ten. I once watched some early episodes of American Idol and heard some horrible singers. My mother was worse, much worse, than any of them. Not only did my mother have an awful voice, but she was also tone-deaf. She simply couldn’t carry a tune. This never discouraged her, and she loved to sing while she accompanied herself on the piano. She wasn’t much of a piano player, but at least her playing was better than her singing.
Whenever my mother sang, my father, my brother, and I headed for the hills. We did our best to make some excuse to go outside, excuses like “We have to go out and count cars” and “We have to water the lawn.” These excuses were obviously false and ridiculous. After all, who has to count cars? As for watering the lawn, we lived in an apartment house and didn’t have one. My mother didn’t pay attention to any of this and continued singing.
One morning my mother must have been especially happy. She was singing at the top of her lungs, making an unbearable racket. She sang “The Blue Danube Waltz” in a more or less minor key. The rest of us were still in our pajamas, and we hurried into our street clothes in order to get out of the apartment as fast as we could. While this was going on, someone rang our doorbell. We answered it, and there we saw a sweet little old lady who lived down the hall. She looked very sad and was carrying a big pot of chicken soup, which she handed to my father.
“Why are you giving me a pot of chicken soup?” my father asked.
The lady said, “I heard some awful noise coming from your apartment. It sounded to me like you’d had a death in the family, so I thought I’d bring some soup to help comfort you.”
My father thanked the lady politely and then explained about my mother’s singing. Everyone had a good laugh over it, except my mother, who ignored all this and continued to sing. By the way, the soup was delicious.