128. VIDEO: Stompin’ donkey

The hi-hat pedal is now up-armored and virtually bombproof.  My tinkerer friend went above and beyond, adding a wide slab at the bottom, bolting a new footplate onto the broken one and covering it in thick blaze-orange duct tape, installing a padded seat for the footplate to hit when it’s depressed, improving the bicycle chain, and spray-painting the whole thing black.  It’s a marvel of DIY engineering.

As Gus and I resume our pedal-stomping practice, I find he hasn’t lost a step during the repair-work hiatus.  From his prior batting average of about .500 before inflicting the compound fracture to the pedal, within a couple minutes now he’s hitting .750 or so.  And he’s just as obsessed too, immediately striding forward after each step-off.  I can barely get the treat to his mouth before he’s reaching for the pedal again:

Once the pedal connects to a percussion instrument and he feels the gratifying agency of making noise, I fear he’ll be unstoppable . . .