Things not to do

An event occurred at the last home varsity football game of the season, which was this last Friday (11/4/05). Despite being one of the funniest things in the entire universe, it's not something I recommend doing, because people will be laughing at you, not with you.

I am, in case you didn't already know, a member of the marching band. It's our job to provide the peppy music for the games. It's also our job to, if necessary, provide national anthem music. In the last three years, maybe longer, we have never had to perform the national anthem at a football game, but this year was different. For this last football game they let a band-ite play the national anthem on his alto sax. Now, I'm not mentioning names, but this is a pretty roundly disliked band-ite. I, more so than others, dislike him immensely (he doesn't have a very high moral character). Several of us band peoples were wondering how he even got picked to do it, but that didn't matter so much.

Game time, we're waiting for the national anthem. ________ has left for the press box. The announcement comes on "Now for the national anthem, performed on the alto sax by ________." He starts playing, doesn't sound so great over the microphone, plus, every time he took a breath it was really audible because he was right by the microphone. He made it through the first half, then he took a big ol' breath to start "And the rockets red glare" and totally fracked the first note. This is where the "Things not to do" title of this blog should be applied. Exasperated, he stops playing, takes a big breath, and says "Oh shit" right into the microphone.

REACTIONS

• BAND KIDS: Maniacal laughter caused by absolute shock and vengeful gratification. I, for one just covered my mouth and started laughing hysterically. I looked over at my friend and he looked like he was about to die laughing, he kept saying "What!?!? What!?!? What?!?!? OMG, What?!?!?"
• STUDENT SECTION: Similar to band kid section, only louder and more widespread (there being more students than band kids). Student section was slightly more entertained because they dislike him more than the band kids do.
• PARENTS: Wow, parent reactions were exactly as one might expect. Less laughter, a lot more "What a disrespectful kid". Parents were more angry, students were entertained at the fact that parents were going to be angry and completely rip apart ________.
• FOOTBALL TEAM: Similar to student section, only more so even. They laughed so hard that I think they might have hurt themselves.

AFTERMATH:

• _______ was taken by his father into the band room after his performance and given the reprimand of his life. The reason (other than the obvious) for such a reprimand? _______'s entire family was present for his solo anthem. His godparents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, in all about 10 people, and they all heard his golden tones echo across the stadium.
• Well, let's think about this a little bit. As I said, it was the LAST home game, and it was during our NATION'S SONG that he swore. You think there might be a little anger on the part of, I don't know, everybody listening?
• EVERY SINGLE BAND KID now has ammunition against him. If he ever insults any of us, all we have to say is "At least we didn't cuss during the national anthem". There, we win, no contest.

ALL IN ALL:

So many of us have been waiting years for something like this to happen to _________. Now many of us are thrilled, because we thought we would have to prompt it in some way, but he did it all by himself! Yay! Ah, public ridicule and embarrassment, it's a glorious thing.