CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

At this very moment Baslow's older offspring is endeavoring to whistle. He is attempting a tune by the Beatles (who are, in his mind, a relatively recent discovery). He is essaying, to be specific, a tuneful rendering of "Can't Buy Me Love".

He is failing; he is failing badly, failing painfully.

On a scale ranking fidelity-to-that-ethereal-ideal-known-as-"the melody", where five represesents the greatest and one the least, Baslow the younger is earning, at best, a one-and-a-half.

Baslow apprises him of that fact.

"Shut up!" he advises Baslow, smiling, and then challenges "Can you do it better?".

Baslow does.

"Shut up!" the younger Baslow emphatically urges.

Baslow leans in and says "You understand that I have been feeling a strong urge to say the same to you?".

They arrive, in that moment, at a measure of mutual understanding.