I want to be Carrie Underwood

The childhood gift I didn’t need.

American Idol was at its peak. Carrie Underwood had just stolen America’s hearts through her soulful and powerful country pipes. And I wanted to be her.

I wanted to be America’s country sweetheart so much that for my 10th birthday in October of 2005, I wanted one thing only: a microphone stand. Up until that point, it was broomsticks, fishing poles and vacuum cleaner handles that served as my microphones. But I wanted the real thing.

So my parents obliged, making trips to multiple music stores and got me the real deal microphone stand. Never mind the fact that I didn’t have any working microphones. I had some toy ones and one from a broken karaoke machine.

The first months of ownership, I used it a great deal, most of the time for pretend shows with the neighborhood kids or the Adventures Plus talent show. But by January of 2006, the stand sat useless in the back of my basement storage room pulled out every few months for a neighborhood talent show.

But the day finally came that the stand couldn’t hold up any longer, and the top part that held the microphone broke off. Luckily by then, I learned that it wasn’t a microphone stand that would have me winning American Idol. It was actual vocal ability.

–Kelly Hinseth for Royal Report