The Perfect Room

It wasn't hard to hear that things upstairs weren't going well.  The thumping and slamming were only part of the the reason.  The idea had been to set up a music room in the attic.  Full surround speakers, vibration canceling feet for the turntable and other stereo equipment.  We had already spent quite a bit of money on this project but had not finished setting things up yet.  The furniture had been moved in place, two reclining chairs and an old but comfortable couch.  Rugs for the floor and foam for the walls and celling (It's the attic so the walls are the celling for much of the room.)

The problem as always was running the wires.  So armed with extra wire and a soldering gun Eric went into the attic.  It was from him that most of the sounds were emanating.  It was not the first time any of us had been through a project like this with Eric so we all knew to stay out of his way until we were called or there was an injury.  We sat at the kitchen table drinking tea and nervously chatting about how great it would be to listen to records in the "perfect room."  No one thought they would really be able to be comfortable in that room because of the hassle that it was giving Eric right now and had been for the last few weekends.  He was a prisoner of the room.  He needed it to be setup the "proper" way and only he knew what way that was.

This was the final day, or so we had been told.  It would be finished tonight.  Eric had picked out the perfect record, it was a surprise.  The wine that would be drunk while listening to the perfect record was waiting in on the counter still in the bag from the store.  We were trying not to become anxious and were trying to remain upbeat.  These were always tense gatherings.

Eric emerged from the attic and walked over to the counter.  He poured himself a glass of water and drank about half.  He then reached for the wine bottle and corkscrew form the counter.  He opened the bottle of wine, looked at us sitting at the table and said "It's perfect. Let's go upstairs."  I brought up the glasses and followed.  We sat down and held tightly onto our glasses as the crackle of the record began.  Only after we had heard the first few notes did we relax into our seats as the first perfect notes reached our ears.  We all sighed, closed our eyes and thought only about the music.  The perfect room, was doing it's job at long last.