"Once"

I went to see "Once" last night. It's a movie musical about two people in transition who meet in Dublin, Ireland. I thought the story, the actors, the music, and Dublin fit together perfectly, like The White Stripes opening up for AC/DC. There was a scene early in the movie when the woman brings her vacuum cleaner downtown, so the street musician, who works as a repairman during the day, can fix it. He doesn't have his tools, so she ends up lugging it around on their first date. He sings a song called "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy" on the bus. I would be surprised if anyone left the theater only half-smitten. Tonight a taxi sat outside my apartment building. My neighbor's pregnant wife and her three year old walked upstairs and came down a few minutes later with their vacuum cleaner. The mother told her child to say goodbye to the apartment. I was surprised to see them. They haven't been around the past three weeks. The husband has been here alone, but he was somewhere else today. The scene outside my apartment was unsettling and unmelodic. It didn't feature a song about vacuum cleaners. There was just a disappointed pregnant woman, a running meter, a screaming child, and a working appliance. Try to make a song out of that.