One day, when my neighbor and I went down to the basement to explore and play, we found an old, out of shape trumpet.

It had a price tag on it, with the numbers crossed out. Even the tag looked yellow from time gone by. It was in the pile of expensive stuff ( which we really shouldn’t go near), but it still looked kind of cheap.

My neighbor wanted to play with it. We didn’t know as much then as we do now, and we will know more tomorrow and each tomorrow to come.

But this old, out of shape, cheap looking, expensive trumpet was different from our usual finds. And I knew it was supposed to be an instrument.

My neighbor cheered with excitement at this discovery. Although the old mouthpiece was filthy, he put it against his mouth and blew.

The only thing that came out of the trumpet was hot air.

I told him,” That’s not how it works.”

But he didn’t care. He continued to blow hot air through that cheap, old, costly instrument.

I’m still learning, but I’ve seen real musicians play decent instruments. I’ve seen the orchestra, with all sorts of instruments playing together making music. I know that just blowing hot air won’t make music.

My neighbor thought he wanted to make music, and he thought he knew how. He was first interested in the trumpet, and wanted to hear it no matter what. He didn’t care that this noisy trumpet never made music; and it probably never would.

He figured out that if he made a buzz with his lips into the trumpet’s mouthpiece, he could blast a sound. Lots of the same harsh sounds.

What an awful noise came from that trumpet! Each time he played the trumpet, it only made more noise.

Now I am sure that it was just a toy. It will never be used to make music. It was less than a cheap instrument; it was a very expensive toy that only makes noise.

I learned that some of my neighbors enjoy just making noise. Lots and lots of noise.

Not too much later, we were bored of just noise and nothing else. And we had awful headaches. We tossed the noisy trumpet  in the junk pile where it belonged, and went back upstairs from the basement.

Soon after, I learned that the noisy trumpet, that only made noise, was a popular toy for Russians not so long ago. I guess they thought that the noisy trumpet could be valuable.

But even when all this trumpet does is produce noise, even with a lot of buzz, it’s a pretty rotten toy.

Sometimes on rainy days, my neighbor wants to return to playing with the noisy trumpet in the basement. I remind him that there is more for us to do upstairs, where it’s brighter, and we could make stuff work better. Especially without that noisy trumpet.