A Record Player With No Records 3

Saturday-July 13-2020-9:00 PM

Hey. Henzi here. And I’m going to tell you (yes, Diary, you) everything that happened.

Exactly one year ago today, I found a record player. That record player belonged to my father, who had passed away years before. I thought that it would be a nice family heirloom. But then things started to happen.

I was cleaning out the attic with Jeff and Hattie, you know, my neighbors, and we were just doing our thing when Jeff came across the player. He said that there weren’t any records, so I would have to buy some if I wanted to use it.

 We went on cleaning, and we were just taking a break when it started PLAYING. Yes, playing. The record player-which had no records-was playing music. It was Beethoven, and it freaked us all out. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. My eyes are half closed now, anyway. Goodnight.

Sunday-July 14-2019-11:00 AM

Good morning! I woke up bright and early this morning at 7 AM, and I meditated for a little bit. Then, I did all of my other normal morning stuff, and now I’m here. Diary, are you ready to hear what happened? It gets crazier.

So, after it started playing, Jeff had grabbed it and given it to me. There was a stupid record on there! We were all super confused, and we tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. When we were finally recovering from the whole thing, my friend Cici got there.

While she said hello to Jeff and Hattie, I went to grab the record player again. But the thing burned me! It literally burned my hand. I was able to get it into a bucket of water pretty fast, but we all decided to just stop for the day and have lunch. So, we ate and filled Cici in on everything that had happened. We were all settling in to just hang out, when something happened. Can you guess?

The record player started playing again!

I’ll tell you more tomorrow; I gotta get to lunch with Cici. Adios!

Monday-July 15-2019-8:00 PM

I just got done cleaning the house, and now I’m just sitting up in bed, watching TV at the same time as I’m writing this. Now, where were we yesterday on the whole story thing? Got it! Here we go.

After the four of us heard the record player, we all ran back upstairs and into the attic. Hattie had a bad knee, and even she ran up! Cici went straight to the record player and picked up the stylus, turning it off. I think all of us let out a sigh of relief at that point. It was starting to get freaky.

I started walking around the attic, looking for anything-ANYTHING-that could explain what was happening. After circling around and around the attic about a million times, I gave up.

I’m getting tired, and I have to go to an early breakfast with my assistant teacher in the morning. I’ll tell you more when I got home from that. Good night.

Tuesday-July 16-2019-8:43 AM

Like I promised, I just got back from breakfast with Linda, and now I’m telling you more about the dumb record player.

Jeff started talking about more ideas to get rid of the thing, and one of his ideas made a lot of sense. He said that if we just sold it to the local antique shop, we would make a lot of money because it was owned by my father, and it would be out of my hands forever. And I needed that. So, we made a plan to go the next day.

So, the next day, we all piled up into my car and drove the eight-ish minutes into town. I drove, and Cici sat next to me in the passenger seat. Jeff and Hattie sat in the backseat, and they chatted away. I could tell they were just trying to keep the mood positive.

We pulled into the antique shop and jumped out of the car. Well, not literally, but you get the picture. I popped the trunk open and let Jeff grab the player. We weren’t taking any chances of me getting burned again. At that point, my hand was still sore.

Jeff carried it into the store and basically dropped it onto the front desk (it was really heavy). The group of us looked expectantly at the man sitting behind the counter. He had a southern accent, and chomped on some gum loudly. We told him what we wanted to do with the player, and he was really surprised when we told him that it belonged to my father. He ended up paying us seven hundred and fifty dollars. We gave the player over and left.

Alright, my hand is hurting. I will write either later today or tomorrow. See ya’ around!

Wednesday-July 17-2019-4:30 

I’m just going to pick up right where we left off yesterday.

We were all really surprised that the man had given us so much money, and we were super happy that the player wouldn’t bother us anymore, either. It was a win-win-win.

We got back in the car and went back over to my house. Like we had planned in the beginning, we cleaned out the attic. After about five hours had passed, we were about halfway done. We decided we should all get a good night’s rest because we had to finish the rest the next day.

The next day, there were three foot high piles of super cool things that my father had buried up in the attic. There was old merchandise from his concerts, and his first guitar, and I found some love letters that my mother had sent to my father (we couldn’t find any responses). 

The four of us were all taking a break when the doorbell ding-dong’ed. I went downstairs as fast as I could, hoping that it was the lamp that I had ordered for the attic. When I opened the door, I didn’t see anyone, but I heard music. I looked down and there it stinkin’ was.

“Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody! With somebody who loves me!” My hand flew to my mouth, and (for a reason I don’t know) tears welled up in my eyes. I slammed the door shut and staggered backwards. Something about that song triggered something inside of me, and I also think that part of it was that the player was just...there...again. More will come tomorrow. Tchau!

Thursday-July 18-2019-3:00 PM

I have nothing really to do today, so I guess I will tell you the rest of the story now. Here we go, Diary. On the roller coaster ride of a story again.

I had run into the dining table, and when Cici, Hattie, and Jeff heard that, they raced downstairs. I really don’t remember what happened next. But I do remember waking up on the couch. Probably from a nap after all of the craziness.

I heard the other three talking, so I slowly sat up and saw the three of them sitting at the dining table around the player. I’ll insert what they said here, because there’s really no way to explain what they said through just, you know, normal...words? I guess. Whatever. Here it is.

“I think this has gone on too far.” (Cici) What has gone on too far?

“Look, this is good payback for what she did to you all those years ago.” (Hattie) Payback for what exactly?

“Cici, you just gotta go through with it. She’ll be so freaked out by the end of it that she’ll never do something like that again. Okay?” (Jeff) What did I do?! And what does Cici have to go through with?!

“Alright. I’ll do it.” (Cici) They started to get up, so I laid back down on the couch and pretended that I was just getting up. It turned out that I had been sleeping for a couple of hours, and that I was out cold once they had me lay down on the couch. I asked them what the situation was with the player, and they said that nothing else unusual had happened. I realized at that point that things only happened when I was around, and it only happened to me when things did. I knew something was up, especially after their conversation that I had overheard.

Oop! Just got a text. My friend Louisa wants to go out for a late late lunch. I guess I can’t tell you all of it today. I will tell you (hopefully) the rest tomorrow.

Friday-July 19-2019-6:30 PM

Let’s get right back to the story.

After Jeff and Hattie went home, it was just me and Cici. While she was in the bathroom, I grabbed her phone and put in her password (we were best friends at the time, and we trusted each other with everything). I looked through her text messages-nothing suspicious. Her note app? Nothing. I checked her reminders, and there still wasn’t anything that was suspicious, or linked to the conversation I had overheard. There was only one more app that I thought might have something, but I thought I still wouldn’t find everything. Before I could even click the icon, I heard the bathroom door open, so I hurried up and closed all of the apps I had been on and shut her phone off, putting it where it was before. When she came out, she didn’t suspect a thing.

Cici had ended up spending the night that night, so at around midnight, I snuck into the guest bedroom where she was sleeping and tip-toed to her nightstand. I felt like a little kid again, sneaking into my mother and father’s bedroom. Back to the story, I took her phone off its charger and went to that last app that I thought might have something. It was a simple app; just the plain calendar app. But I found something.

Monday/July 2/2018 - Start Planning The Prank On Henzi

So something WAS UP. I clicked on the date, and clicked on a couple more links. I ended up on some website, and it had all of the little details on her devious plan to prank me with the record player. I knew I was going to expose her that morning.

So I did.

At first Cici denied it, but when I showed her how I got to the proof, she couldn’t deny it anymore. And then she spilled the beans. Here was the whole plan:

Step One : Make sure you explain EVERYTHING that happened to Jeff and Hattie. Get them on board, and then put the rest of the steps into action.

Step Two : Get Mark to hide in the attic.

Step Three : Have Mark put the record on there. 

The rest of it was just as devious and rude, and even the guy at the antique shop was fake. He was Mark in disguise (Mark was Cici’s boyfriend at the time). That wasn’t what made me the most angry, though. What made me really angry was the reason she wanted to pull the prank on me. It was because I had dated her ex in high school. That was years and YEARS ago! From that day forward, we weren’t friends anymore. And we still aren’t.

So, I guess that this wasn’t the best ending for you to hear, Diary. But there’s nothing that I could do. It’s just that life is stupid sometimes. Maybe go find a good book to read with a happy ending to lift your spirits from my awful experience. And to think that it started by me cleaning my attic. I still don’t understand some aspects of the plan, but whatever. Talk tomorrow! :) Paalam!