OLATHE, Kan. — Liz Barret, your close lifelong friend and one of the only people whose opinion actually matters to you, skimmed through a few seconds of your labor-of-love magnum opus yesterday that took nearly a decade to complete before dismissing it forever.
“He’s been talking about this record since college, so it’s only right for me to show my support and really dedicate some time to it,” Barret said while removing the record from her phone so it would never come up on shuffle. “I’m not gonna actually sit here and listen to the whole thing, but I put on the first three seconds of the first song, then about 10 seconds in the middle of track seven — I think 13 seconds is plenty to get the gist of an hour-long album. It sounded pretty good, and I’m happy for him.”
Though you admit it was nice of her to listen at all, you were disappointed that that was all she heard.
“Her official review was it sounds ‘kinda like Green Day,’ which immediately indicates she didn’t actually listen, as every track is orchestral instrumentals in a ring cycle,” you shouted in a whirlwind of chagrin, sadness, and anger. “I put everything I have into this thing — this record is the most emotionally vulnerable and personal music I’ve ever written, and it was listened to by the one person closest to me for 13 seconds.”
“Though that beats the previous record of two seconds, when it came on in the car and my buddy skipped over it,” you added with resignation, “so I guess there’s that.”
While proud of your accomplishment, your dad was equally upset at the album’s reception, but for slightly different reasons.
“I paid for the thing. Someone better listen to it!” your dad yelled, shaking his head in regret and disappointment. “Do you have any idea how expensive it is to record a 72-piece orchestra… then go back and re-record it years later because you ‘rewrote a few bars?’ Every single person this record is given to had better listen to every second of music, uninterrupted, and undistracted, repeatedly. I cashed in my Amazon stock for this!”
At press time, Barret had since listened to an additional two seconds of the record after accidentally leaving her sound on while scrolling through stories on Instagram.