Hey Alexa, Play ...

For many years, we continued to own a stereo system when everyone else seemed to be upgrading their music technology far beyond our much-loved stereo and overly large speakers. Granted, we'd moved from LP's to CD's, but we stuck to our guns as we felt that the quality of music coming from our system was so much better.

Until one day at a friend's house. We heard her say, "Alexa, play The Beatles music." And sure enough, The Beatles started singing Lucy in the Sky.

WHAT? Wait! The quality rivaled our fancy old-school system. I remember asking if "Alexa" played other things. The demonstration was amazing! Alexa played classical music. Alexa played Doobie Brothers. Alexa played Earth Wind & Fire. (And yes, I am absolutely aging myself here.)

So, of course we wanted our own Alexa. We sold our stereo system and put our exciting new Alexa on the shelf. We felt pretty smug that we'd stepped into this brave new world.

Suffice to say that since our early Alexa days, we've learned a lot more about her musical magic. Including asking her to play not just an individual artist or group, but an entire genre of music. These days we'll say, "Alexa, play Jack Johnson radio." We get hours of fabulous music in the same genre as Jack Johnson. (And yes, we now know she tells jokes, tracks our Amazon shipments, and can give us the current weather report.)

It's such a wonderful use of technology!

So ... knowing what you know now, here's where this past weekend got very funny.

It's Sunday morning. We're fixing breakfast. John turns toward Alexa and says, "Hey Alexa, play Jon Spandora." We've recently discovered Jon Baptiste radio so that's where my mind goes. I think: new station! I wonder what his genre is. The music comes on. It's delightful. I like it enough that I want to know who Jon Spandora is.

I say to John, "This is great music. Who's Jon Spandora" He laughs out loud and looks at me (while frying eggs) like I've lost my marbles. He can hardly spit out any words. "No", he laughs. "Jon Spandora."

I KNOW, I say. Who is he?

He tries again but by now we're both laughing so hard he can't even speak. I'm laughing because he is, and he's laughing because I am.

Clearly, I'm missing something.

Finally, he spits out with much emphasis on the apostrophe (both of us still laughing so hard we're nearly crying) ... "John'ZZZ (breath) Pandora. I set up a playlist on Pandora. John'Z Pandora." 🙃🤦‍♀️

*** In the retelling, this is where I envision Jimmy Fallon would laugh, put his forehead on his desk, sit back up, and do his famous hands-on-the-desk Ba-Dump-Dump motion.