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And the beat goes on ... until it drives us nuts

Little Solomon wants to play the drums, but I have one abiding concern - the noise.

LITTLE SOLOMON wants to play the drums, and in spite of the fact that my son could very well go on to become the next ?uestlove, the Grammy award-winning drummer from The Roots, I have one abiding concern - the noise.

There's nothing quite as awful as the racket an amateur drummer can produce. It surpasses the wretched squeals of a budding trumpeter. It laughs in the face of a young pianist's miscues. A drum trumps them all because, in the hands of an amateur, it can produce the kind of mind-numbing commotion no human should be forced to endure.

It's like the sound of a bill collector who's called as you're slurping Oodles of Noodles the day after losing your job. It's like the sound of your car stalling on the morning you've got five minutes to get to your wedding. It's like the sound of your wife saying, "It's time to talk," when there's 30 seconds left in the Super Bowl with no timeouts and your team driving in for the win. Drums in the hands of the wrong person can be deadly weapons. They don't kill you. They just make enough noise to make you wish you were dead.

I know you're probably thinking that I'm cruel to step on my 9-year-old son's drumming dream. You're thinking that I'm an ogre because I don't support his musical ambitions. You're thinking that I'm the kind of guy who makes the boy sit in a corner all day long. But you're wrong. I love my son. That's why I have to stop him from pursuing this drum thing now, before he follows in his father's misguided footsteps.

That's right. I, too, wanted to be a drummer when I was a little boy. I was drawn to the shiny metal that held the skins in place. I was thrilled by the cymbals that crashed like so much thunder. I was hypnotized by the syncopated rhythm of the snare, and determined to use the kick drum to put the bass in your face.

Drums were the rhythm to the blues, the big to the band, the country to the western and the hip to the hop. Once I truly understood the power that the drums represented, I knew that I had to have them, so I set about doing what I had to do.

I went beyond the standard methods of begging, haranguing and harassing my parents. I went the extra mile. I asked my mom to double check my essay on my favorite body part - the eardrum. When we passed the macaroni and cheese on Thanksgiving, I demanded that they give the drummer some.

OK, maybe I didn't do all that, but I begged effectively enough to see my wish come true. On Christmas morning, I came down the stairs and, much to my surprise, there was a shining set of drums sitting next to the Christmas tree. It took all of two hours for my mother to discover just how wrong she'd been to get them for me.

Much to their credit, my parents held out for about two weeks, listening to my awful drum solos as they echoed up from the basement like audible poison designed to kill everyone within earshot. One day, after I violated my snare by forcing it to make sounds it was never intended to produce, my mother hid my drum set.

I never saw it again. And when I look back on it now, I know that was for the best.

As for my son, I love him so much I'm going to do something that every fiber in my being is telling me not to do. I'm going to let him have the drums. But I'm going to do so in a way that will allow me to keep my sanity for at least a few weeks more than my parents did.

If Little Solomon truly wants to play the drums - and his brief history with the piano makes that doubtful - he will have to do it my way. He'll start out with just a snare. No cymbals, no kick drum, no kidding. If the lessons he receives in school allow him to play something other than mindless noise, we will add one piece per month until he has an entire set.

But if he produces nothing but rhythmic wretchedness, and does so with that sly little grin he wears while engaging in mischief, I will follow in my mother's footsteps. I will hide the source of my torment. I will regain a portion of my sanity.

And Little Solomon will never know the true meaning of the phrase, "Give the drummer some."