In a few hours, my family and I will be sitting in the IU Auditorium, laughing ourselves sillier than we already are, over the antics and sheer class of Professor Peter Schickele and the PDQ Bach Jekyll and Hyde Tour.

Hub and I have seen PDQ Bach four times in our marriage, and each of us had seen it at least once before we got married. It’s become one of those ‘traditions’ that becomes a ‘tradition’ only when we are reminded of it and start to think about how intensely cool it is. Or when one of the cd’s comes ’round in the jukebox rotation.

I know that most people have never heard of PDQ Bach; really, you should run out and listen to some of it at the bookstore, or the library. Heck, download it.

Or go here and just click around. Don’t eat M&M’s or any kind of hard candy while you listen to PDQ Bach; you’ll kill yourself choking.

I think “Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice” is my all-time favorite individual piece. You youngsters won’t catch the movie reference, but those of us of, um, a certain age, will. Even the titles of the pieces are hilarious.

This Opera in One Unnatural Act is from my favorite PDQ Bach cd: The Intimate PDQ Bach.

Here. Have a listen.

Well anyway, that’s where we’ll be tonight. The sweet MIL has never been before, but she’s majestically musical and I hope she will enjoy it.

Belle and Zappa have been before, but it’s been a while. We started taking them to concerts, plays, musicals, and what-have-you, when they were VERY young. So young, in fact, that. . . . . well, let me just say that they’ve slept through some of the finest productions in the world.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, they behaved beautifully because they knew exactly what would happen to them if they caused a disturbance of any kind in a public place.

And now they’re both live-theatre fanatics, just like mommy and daddy. Cool, huh.

(They really were too young for “Kismet;” that drowning scene kind of traumatized them for a little while. Fortunately, during the curtain call, one of the actors got bonked by a lowering curtain and felled flat, which took some of the edge off. It remains their only true memory of “Kismet” to this day.)

Ask Belle some time what she remembers about the circus. Hint: it wasn’t the clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists, or popcorn.

And once when we went to see “Les Miserables” in Louisville, our cheap nose-bleed side-bar seats were pre-empted by the sound system, and we were routed to ROW FIVE CENTER ORCHESTRA seats, for the same price. We had taken a van full of Belle’s and Zappa’s high school friends, and we all got the great seats! For CHEAP!

So now, I’d best get busy grading papers, so I can laugh myself sick later tonight. I know we’ll have a great time. I love it when my family does things together; that doesn’t subside when they grow up, you know.

I hope all of you have a great Sunday, too. Maybe next time, you can come with us!

Tonight, we have some fun.

Unless, of course, the phone rings again.