Gal Smiley got her Scholastic order a few days ago. She’s always angling for the book that comes with a toy. She likes stuff that comes with a free action figure, or animal shaped eraser, or fancy pencil and pad set. For a long time I tried to resist, but although I still draw the line at things are pure toys or craft kits – there has to be SOME reading involved – I usually let her get the thing that comes with a thing (after she swears that she will TOTALLY read the book, and then NEVER reads the book, and I am a total idiot who, apparently, never learns, yet is capable of writing a run-on sentence like NO ONE’S BUSINESS).
So this time she ordered a Hardy Boys mystery book (which she would probably love, if only she would read the damn thing), and it came with a Voice Warper. It’s a little box that’s shaped and stickered up to look like an iPhone, which in and of itself makes it super cool. But there’s more! It can also record your voice – ten whole seconds worth – then play it back at one of four, count them FOUR, speeds.
This, as you can imagine has led to much hilarity – people greeted at the door with a chirpy chipmunk saying “hi daddy!” People woken in the morning with a booming, low voice warning, “GEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTT UUUUUUUUUPPPPPP!” People having their laughter secretly recorded, then played back to them in the most embarrassing way possible! GAH.
I’d probably be annoyed by now except for one really mysterious thing, and that’s this: when Gal Smiley records her own voice, then plays it back at one speed slower, it sounds exactly like me. It’s freaking us both out. You would almost swear it was me speaking the words.
Every single time she tries this, we both look at each other in wonder and befuddlement and renewed amazement, like, HOW is this possible? I mean, I know we are related and all, but we never would have thought we sounded alike before. Physically speaking, we are different in almost every way. I am SHOCKED.
It’s almost like her voice from the future, calling back to us over some fancy time-travelling telephone. Weird, but cool.
So we continue to be both charmed by this, and a little squealy about it, but either way, I can’t get enough of listening to the thing. Scholastic, I owe you one.
(But seriously, Gal Smiley, READ THE BOOK ALREADY.)
TurtleHead 
my sister, mother and i sounded so much alike that we could get into full conversations with people who had no idea they were talking to the wrong person. it caused some embarrassement when i was a teenager, and also some huge trouble! i don’t think we sound so much alike anymore, but i guess we’d need an outsider to tell us that.
That IS really cool. Also, I love you for caving in and ordering the book with the toy. Which I always did too, but I think of you as someone who is much more tough-minded and principled about that kind of thing. Your frailty makes me adore you even more.
p.s. I also got sucked in to ordering books about stuff they liked, but the books were in French and so they never read them. Can’t tell you how many fricking Bionicle and Lego and Pokemon French books I’ve donated to Value Village.
That’s so neat!
I wonder if my university friend, Nick, still reads your blog. If so, I don’t even need to finish this comment for him to know EXACTLY what this blog reminds me of.
And yes, Nick, I’m still being “so careful”.
Ohmygosh, I totally got shivers up my spine reading that. It’s so cool! It *is* like hearing her future self.
Jamie’s always so excited to get me to order books and then never wants to read them, too. Someday he will, right? Right? Nah, I’ll be dropping off French Lego books to Value Village, just like Allison did…
Aside from the combination of absolute coolness and creepiness of this, I am GEEKED that it was a freebie and not super expensive, as I always thought time travel devices would be.
Also, this is the coolest bonus to a book EVER. When I got Scholastic books they gave me lots of horse and kitten posters.
This is so freakish….Ben, my 7yo @nd Grader, INSISTED I buy him THAT exact book because of the little toy recorder thingy….and I tried very hard to not cave, and he was sick the day the order was due, but I had to go to school to drop the little sister and then again to pick her up and he did NOT forget that I had to submit the order to the office…
It hasn’t arrived yet. Who knows what awaits me with this thing…
🙂
OMG that *is* freaky! I’m going to have to try it with my kids!!!!!
Cool that the two of you sound alike…but does your voice sound like YOU? I still get a bit of a shock every time I hear my own voice recorded. “Who’s that talking?!? That’s not what I sound like, is it?!?”
Well, the first time I heard it played back I immediately did recognize it as sounding like me. I think it’s because I have three sisters, and all four of us sound so much alike that we can even confuse our mother on the phone, so I’m used to hearing “my” voice from a 3rd party location already!