Episode 2 – “The Garage Sessions (and the Alien Incident)” – Quick Recap
- Emily retreats to the garage—now decked out like a makeshift studio—to spare the house from her booming vocals. Peace restored… mostly.
- She vows to improve her high notes—except they come out sounding like a fire alarm with feelings, warranting noise complaints from “bats in the neighbouring county”.
- Wild twist: her ear-shredding practice coincides with an alien spaceship appearing in orbit, then vanishing—prompting a “weird timing, huh?” from Emily and a concerned parent ready to drown it out with TV volume.
The Power Ballad Blackout – The garage had become something of a legend in the neighbourhood. Not because it housed a classic car or top-tier tools like other dad-operated garages—but because it now glowed faintly pink at night, buzzed with vocal warmups that made passing raccoons flinch, and occasionally emitted what sounded like Celine Dion being impersonated by a blender.
Emily, ever the innovator, had recently upped her game. She’d bought a second microphone, claiming it was essential for “duets with myself,” and wired it in with a tangle of questionable extension cords, LED strip lights, and something she referred to as “The Voice Enhancer 9000,” which, upon closer inspection, was an old karaoke machine plugged into a power inverter and a George Foreman grill.
“You shouldn’t daisy-chain that many sockets, Em,” Dad warned.
“Dad, please,” she said, donning her glitter headphones. “Electricity flows toward talent.”
Spoiler: it did not.
That night, Emily was working on what she called a “Power Ballad Reawakening.” She cranked both mics to full volume, stood between two amps, and let out a note so long and sustained that birds fell from trees and the smart fridge tried to defrost itself in protest.
(Apparently, it is scientifically possible to shatter glass with your voice—though Emily may be the first to target household appliances.
But here’s the thing about amateur garage studios: if you plug enough nonsense into one power strip while unleashing sonic devastation at full volume… sometimes, physics files for divorce.
Somehow—somehow—Emily’s voice triggered a harmonic resonance between the two mics. A rare, dangerous, and utterly ridiculous phenomenon known only in science fiction forums as “Sympathetic Acoustic Feedback Convergence.”
In simpler terms: she created a temporary fusion point in the garage.
The temperature spiked. The lights flickered. The lawn gnome outside began to levitate slightly. And then…
BOOM.
The entire neighbourhood went dark. (In hindsight, daisy-chaining a George Foreman grill into a karaoke setup may have violated several electrical safety guidelines. Streetlights fizzled. Car alarms wailed. Our neighbour’s Tesla lost Wi-Fi and had an existential crisis.
In the distance, you could hear a solitary voice yell, “I was watching Bake Off! Emily!!”
Dad stood there in the sudden silence, bathed in the faint smell of melted amp wire and vanilla-scented microphone foam, blinking like someone who’d just survived an EMP.
Emily poked her head out of the smoke-filled garage.
“Did… I just bring down the grid?”
“You brought down the grid,” Dad said calmly, “and possibly re-opened a wormhole to 1983.”
“But it was in tune, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Sweetheart,” Dad said, patting her on the shoulder, “the power company is currently rebooting the substation because of your G-flat. Let’s maybe take five.”
That evening, while the rest of the neighbourhood barbecued their fridge food in the blackout, Emily posted a video of the event titled: “When You Sing So Hard You Shut Down Society”
It got 1.2 million views overnight. She’s now in negotiations to do a jingle for a battery company. Ironic, really.
Meanwhile, Dad installed a circuit breaker that auto-triggers if Emily goes above 80 decibels. So far, it’s saved two squirrels, a microwave, and Mum and Dad’s marriage.
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