Byline: Chelle LaFleur — Flipped

With apologies to Karen!, who was expecting to see this posted earlier.

I swear, you’da thought my desk was hostin’ Christmas the way the whole greedy office buzzed around here the other day, sniffin’ around for handouts. What do you mean why? You think Chelle LaFleur’s not worth sniffing around?

This one time, you just might be right, but don’t let that get to your head. It’s the mail that was so hot. A good ten packages stuffed full of CDs showed up, all at once. Looks like record company folk really do care that I know what I’m writing about when these bands roll through town.

Now, don’t no one go telling them that I know more’n I let on. You really think I get all hot and bothered over a record company thinking I’m so dumb, they gotta send me lots of CDs and press kits about their bands? Got any clue how much money someone’ll make on eBay once I’m dead?

Even funnier than the fact that I’ve got these folk snowed is the way my coworkers react. You’d think they’re in a record store or somethin’, pickin’ up all my new music and turning it over, as if the back cover will tell them the secrets of the universe or somethin’.

Ever notice that? How every single person on the planet picks up a record, a cassette — yeah, remember those two things? — a CD, whatever, and turns it over and gives it a good, long look?

Seems to your friend Chelle here that if the universe wants to give up its secrets, it’ll do it inside the record and let it come out that way, in the music. I’ve never seen anything on the back of a CD ‘cept a pretty picture — okay, I’ve seen plenty of ugly ones and even more boring ones. — and some really small print that hurts Chelle’s old eyes.

You heard it first and you heard it here: It’s a waste of all our time time to flip a disc over and read what’s on the back, but I dare you to try and stop yourself before it’s been flipped. Like women who want to keep their mouths shut when they put mascara on, we just can’t stop.