One in a Row of Ten

One In a Row of Ten

Clunk! Here I go again. Belting out another performance on Molly’s Sony Stereo System.  The speakers are four feet high with a twelve inch woofer. The sound that floats out of these speakers is loud and thumping.  Molly and her friends can’t get enough of my fun music and cool vibes. She presses the button and I am alive and happy to be the spotlight of the evening.  Here comes my favorite part of being a cassette- the heads are bobbing, the hands are clapping and the feet are tapping.  Once I hit the chorus all of them are up on their feet and dancing around the room. 

Sleepover nights are big nights for cassettes. Molly likes to play her cassettes the entire time her friends are over. So far this evening I have played two times. Two performances means two rewinds.  Rewinding is the scariest part of being a cassette tape. Anything can happen during this fast spin. One time, Duran Duran caught slack and ended up spewing out a bunch of his tape.  I thought his days of playing music were over but Molly used a pencil to wind the tape back into the cassette. He was lucky.

  My friends call me  F.T. Loose.  This is short for the real title of my cassette tape- Footloose. Molly has lots of sleepovers and the stories I hear from these giggling girls are always fascinating. Molly’s friend, Melissa, told her that she hoped “Gorgeous Greg with the blue eyes”  asked her to the Valentine’s dance. Her other friend, Mary, proclaimed that she was going to the dance with her lab partner, Chad. He asked her while they were dissecting a little frog. She said it was kind of nerdy and sweet. 

Being a cassette tape is hard work. I have to be at the ready whenever Molly needs me.  This includes all road trips.  Currently, I am riding in the number three spot of Molly’s travel case.  I am nice and snug between Madonna and Huey Lewis.   Other riders in the case are Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson, Journey, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Bon Jovi  and Prince. It is always a bit stressful when Molly picks her travel music.  There is only room for ten cassette tapes in her travel case and Molly always has trouble choosing. Sometimes I will go in and then out before she closes the lid. It really is quite agonizing. Once we are packaged in the case there is always lots of chatter. I hear comments like, “great to see you again” and “glad to have you on this trip, let’s rock”.

Last summer, Molly’s family took a long road trip. I was so relieved that I was picked for this fun adventure.  The great thing about a road trip is that Molly can really focus on the songs. Since she can’t dance around in the car she just looks at the J-card where all the lyrics are printed. She really has a nice voice and belts out the tunes while listening through her headphones. Headphones that are attached to her blue Walkman. Her parents riding up front are always entertained by Molly’s singing even if they can’t hear the music. 

 Recently, Molly was listening to one of her favorite cassettes, John Mellencamp, when the tape completely split. Most likely, because she listened to Jack and Diane repeatedly. She was so upset about the ruined tape that her mom took her to Camelot Music.  I thought she would come back with another cassette but intsead of a replacement tape Molly came back with a round piece of plastic. It was shiny and very thin with a hole in the middle of it. What in the world is this? Molly  also came back with a small silver boombox with a handle attached to the top. Does this handle mean she can just take it wherever she goes?  This new purchase was causing quite the stir among all the cassettes.

This boombox had a place for cassettes and a place for this round piece of plastic. Unlike the Sony Stereo System this boombox did not have a place to play records. This was quite concerning to the albums on the shelf. I quickly learned the name of this new music- a compact disc. At first, we all laughed and snickered at this shiny disc. What could this piece of plastic have that we don’t have? We felt positive that Molly would never think of replacing all of us with this new technology.  

Molly listened to this Mellancamp CD all the time. We listened too. The sound was fantastic and it was so easy for her to change songs.  No more waiting on a tape to rewind. No more trying to stop at the exact start to a song. No more worries about a tape splitting. All Molly had to do was press a little arrow button and it would take her to the song she wanted.  We knew we were in trouble.

As new music was released Molly would buy the CD instead of the classic cassette tape. It felt terrible knowing our time of playing was coming to an end. She kept us on her shelf but rarely played our music anymore. The Footloose Album had some of her favorite songs so Molly replaced me with the Footloose CD. I became friends with the CD and he was named F.T. Loose Number Two. When F.T. Loose Number Two was performing I could just sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Over the next few years I sat on Molly’s shelf with all her other tapes. Before long we were considered old and defunct technology. We now sat next to all the record albums.  It is hard to imagine a day when something else will be invented to take the place of the compact disc. After all, cassette tapes replaced  the vinyl record. For a brief moment in time the cassette tape ruled the music industry.  We wowed people with our small plastic case and little wheels that would spin while we played music. I hope Molly will always remember the fun times we had together.  She danced, she laughed, and sang with her friends.  Molly really understood the message of my cassette tape- “Let’s Dance!”