"My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!"
About this Quote
The punchline is "mail order!" - an exclamation point of era and access. Before one-click shopping, ordering instruments by post signals commitment: you plan, you wait, you gamble on what arrives. That distance matters. It suggests a father building a private pipeline of possibility into the home, importing new sounds the way others might bring home forbidden snacks. There's also a quiet class narrative here: not everyone has a music store nearby, not everyone can buy big-ticket items openly. Mail order is both workaround and aspiration.
Wilson's tone is key: affectionate, amused, unpretentious. She isn't myth-making; she's demystifying. The subtext is that artistry can start in the messy, funny logistics of family life - with secrecy, surprise deliveries, and instruments multiplying in closets. It paints music not as a museum piece but as a lived, slightly chaotic household habit, which fits Wilson's own work: rooted, improvisational, and allergic to self-seriousness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Father |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wilson, Cassandra. (2026, January 15). My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order! FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-had-all-kinds-of-instruments-in-the-140112/
Chicago Style
Wilson, Cassandra. "My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!" FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-had-all-kinds-of-instruments-in-the-140112/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!" FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-had-all-kinds-of-instruments-in-the-140112/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.
