My kids like playing in the school band, so, as supportive parents, we pay the instrument rental fees, put up with their
Elementary school band concerts are never a blast. They're held in the school cafeteria, meaning you have to sit at long lunch tables designed to be partially comfortable only for people half your size.
The kids really do try (at least most of them) but are still often out of sync and flat. And then there's the music selection. After the first 2 numbers all the songs start to sound A LOT alike. And they all sound like "Hot Cross Buns," which you've already heard played in your home so many times that you want to barf.
These things last about an hour, but seem like much longer. You sit there, politely clapping after each number, and hope your kids don't notice that you've dozed off or started playing Angry Birds.
As veterans, Mrs. Grumpy and I came well prepared. We sat in a far row where our kids couldn't see if we were
But this year, we had an unexpected reprieve.
At 18 minutes into the performance, during "Good King Wenceslas" a kid playing oboe abruptly projectile vomited into the first row, showering a group of eager parents with a partially digested Happy Meal. The other band members stopped, then valiantly tried to restart for a few seconds, but were so horribly out of sync as they tried to both read music and watch the new entertainment that it was a lost cause. Barf Guy's mom heroically leaped onto the stage and tried to use her husband's sweater (fortunately with him out of it) to clean it up. Then the kid heaved some more.
After about 30 seconds the band teacher politely said "Thank you all for coming, and Happy Holidays. Is the janitor still here?"
I feel sorry for this kid. Because from now on until he moves away to college he'll be known not as Mike or Steve or Mason, but simply as "the kid who puked during the holiday concert."
28 comments:
ROFLMAO.
:)
If you live in a small town, it never really goes away. I still remember Bri, who, in 2nd grade, became "the girl who puked in her desk and had a notebook cemented to the bottom at the end of the year as a result." Yes, in her desk. Remember those horrible metal desks with the lift-up tops?
WV: baring. one letter off from the topic at hand!
Oh no, that poor kid. And those things seem to spread fast, hope you don't catch it! But hey, at least it helped you get out of there fast and made it a little more interesting. ;)
My son's school concerts always get hijacked by the PTA. They start at 6:30 but they really don't. At 6:30 it becomes a PTA meeting...it's the only way the PTA can get anyone to show up at their meetings, hijack a concert! The concerts never seems to start until 7:30. The kids, however, are required to be there by 6:15...if your kid is in the show, their is no escaping the damn PTA meeting!
I do love your blog. Always vastly entertaining. "And to all a good night."
I had to laugh so hard at this one! And then I would go home and quiz my child to see how much of the barf bug he was in contact with (was he friends with Heavin' Steve) and wonder whether we would all have that same virus for Christmas.
How I wish my kid's Winter Concert went like this. Poor kid though. He'll never live that down.
Description to a 'tee'
As eldest of my parents' more than six offspring whose children's school careers were launched at annual school concerts, and a parent of offspring born a decade apart... forty years of vain hope attending concerts waiting for the concert of a sibling or daughter at Orchestra Hall with the CSO.
Unfortunately for you, you've cued one of my barf inducing jokes. What do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole? Hot Cross Bunnies!
The parents should nominate him for some kind of public service award. Except the timing means that most families in the audience will suffer that GI flu sometime between now and Christmas.
I know I shouldn't , but - LOL .
Poor guy. As other posters have said, he will never live this one down.
Unless his family moves to the other side of the country.
And even then ... some kid from Wingnut elementary will move to the school or some kid at the new school will be friends with a Wingnutter ...
But on the bright side, it does not seem as if the vomiting was contagious (as happened at my 4th grade music recital) and it DID get you outta there fast!
Yet another reason the "veterans" don't sit in the front row.
Around paragraph 8, one loyal reader choked on his evening bourbon and almost spilled his glass from laughing so hard.
The oboe player? I didn't know anyone could actually play the oboe prior to age 25.
What a howl!
My kid said it was an oboe, but he could be wrong.
In all honesty, my wind-instrument-recognition-skills suck.
The ad below this post on my google reader page was "Boarding school for boys." Maybe that's the answer.
Shouldn't have gotten the eggnog shake...
My son barfed on third base and the game barely missed a beat. Coach dumped a bucket of water on it and yelled to the kid on 2nd base that he might not want to slide into 3rd.
LOL! Never sit in front. Got it.
Oh that poor, poor child........and the people sitting the front row......
~Francine
Had the same question about the oboe...it can be played by those under 25, but in elementary school?! More likely a clarinet.
Projectile vomiting stories are always the best. Those with sympathetic reaction are even better. Keep up the good work. You are spot on with the recitals. Although, at one I cried, my son who was not scholastically gifted played a solo over misgivings of teacher that brought the house down, it was Christmas 2001, he played God Bless America. The teacher had been overuled by the Principal who said let the kid play after auditioning him. Kids love em .
In Puerto Rico we also have those, although it usually involves a renactment of the Nativity scene, and the kids singing traditional Christmas songs. I usually enjoyed the songs, but what was really entertaining was the looks the other girls gave the one elected to be the Virgin Mary. Ah! If looks could kill! Every girl wanted to be the Virgin Mary...
As a woodwind player, I had friends start on oboe in 4th grade.
Did it take them a lot of therapy to get over it? Guess so ...
For the record, it was a brass player who whoopsed his cookies during the concert.
If all school command performances ended like that, I wouldn't have avoided them so assiduously.
I started on oboe in the fourth grade, and then went to bassoon in the seventh, because I had too much air for such a little instrument.
Doc, did it look like a clarinet, but with a tiny, drinking straw on the top? If so, it's an oboe, if the mouthpiece is as wide as the instrument, then it's a clarinet
The torture of sitting at a novice concert could be compared to sitting at a doctors office listening to people hack and really bad "elevator music". You get the occasional barfer there too!
Oboe: 1) An ill woodwind that blows no good; 2)used to set bassoons on fire.
I used to be a semi-pro bassoonist, and once cleared out the lobby of my dorm by practicing the really, really high notes in the lobby conference room. Yup. Sounded like a couple of cats were dying horrible deaths in there!
Maybe his name is Ralph
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