that plastic recorder from 4th grade

When I was a little kid, I dreamed of playing a musical instrument. I had one of those little toy organs and managed to fill the southeast corner of my bedroom with a pretty mean "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," but I longed for something a tad louder and more portable. I was therefore delighted when my entire 4th grade class received recorders. I quickly learned such classics as "Theme from Hill Street Blues" and "Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)." I had that little brown plastic horn (or whatever) as my constant companion. And then, for some reason, on Thanksgiving (after giving a recital to assembled family and friends) I decided that sticking a red ballpoint pen in the end of the recorder would be a keen way of cleaning it out. Needless to say, the pen got stuck. And later that weekend, I actually lost the recorder inside the pull-out couch. Of course, I didn't know it was in the pull-out couch, or it wouldn't have been lost. It wasn't until 7th grade, when we moved to a new house, that it was discovered down there with some old potato chip crumbs. And this is only one of the many nice things that gave me great delight that I still managed to ruin and/or lose.