That’s a nice, fancy new keyboard you got there. Expensive choice for someone who doesn’t know what a treble clef is.

What? Am I supposed to believe that this hobby is going to stick just because you downloaded the Simply Piano app? HA! Someone hold my miniature pitchfork I’m laughing too hard.

It always starts the same way. The obsessive Googling for tips and tricks, the pacing in front of the window waiting for Amazon to deliver your equipment, the unbearable giddiness of a new potential pastime. And it always ends the same way—you quitting 2.5 weeks in when you’re not immediately fantastic at something.

Remember how excited you were about the pottery wheel that’s now a hat rack? Or the sourdough starter you ate raw on day three? Or the kayak in your backyard that’s become a nest for rabid raccoons?

The keyboard won’t be any different; it will become your new dumping ground for dirty clothes in just a few weeks. Maybe instead of bouncing around to new hobbies, you should bounce the pickleballs you have wasting away in the unopened set in your garage. Remember that set? You bought it along with SEVEN new athletic skorts because you were confidently entering your “pickleball era.”

You really should just quit now and save yourself the hassle. Wouldn’t you rather lie in bed doomscrolling on Yahoo News for nine hours until your eyes burn? Or hate watching the new season of Love is Blind? Come on, that bed does look pretty fluffy.

You say you’re “not looking for external validation” from learning the keyboard but I don’t believe you. The second you master a mediocre version of “Ode to Joy” you’ll have friends gathering around your living room to hear you play like you’re the protagonist in a Jane Austen novel. Everyone will smile and clap but just know inside, they will judge you. And they WILL titter about your performance in the group chat that you’re not in called “Besties for the Resties.”

I know the angel on your other shoulder is whispering sweet nothings in your ear, telling you to follow your dreams and all that crap. But don’t listen to her. Just remember that dream journal you bought that you never even cracked open. Yet another interest with zero follow-through.

It’s going to take you soooo long to get good at the keyboard anyway. Plus, there are, like, AI music apps now that will do all the work for you. I should know, my demon assistants have been working around the clock on the whole artificial intelligence thing in hell.

I can already tell by your stack of piano books from the library and your “looking sharp#” t-shirt that this is going to be your entire personality for a while. But what if you make a dramatic Instagram post about learning to play and then you fail? Or your post gets fewer likes than your frenemy’s half eaten croissant pic? That would be SO embarrassing.

You’re pretty old to be learning an instrument, anyway. I should know, I have a close-up view of every gray hair that sprouts on your head. You should have listened to your mom and taken advantage of the free piano lessons she worked so hard to buy you as a kid. You should have listened to your mom about a lot of things.

Oh, you’re going with the angel on this one? Fine, you two have fun trying to harmonize together. But when you move on to glassblowing and you need fire to cut your glass don’t come crying to me!