Dear Ms. Music Teacher:

As children move through the elementary school process, some "music teacher" decides they need to learn to play the recorder.

Once the student has perfected "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and the "music teacher" can no longer stand the sound of the instrument, it is brought home and discharged into a toy box or child's bedroom.

Later, it is discovered by a younger member of the family. Unaware that the finger holes allow for note changes, this youngster will parade around the house blowing a singular, shrill note. She'll tell you that the name of her song is "Ballad For A Springtime Morning", but the ballad sounds more like crowd dispersement technology developed by DARPA.

Eventually, dad accidentally steps on the recorder and it breaks into a hundred unusable pieces of colored plastic.

I wonder if 15th century fathers accidentally crushed recorders, too? How has it survived? Is the recorder the cockroach of the musical world, able to survive whatever is thrown at it?