Beetles and Bottles: Tales of a Strange Friday

Friday was strange...one of those days that random things occur--not bad, just strange. During our tutoring period, (a class that begins as my students leave so I have band/guard kids) one of my guard girls threw up in the trashcan in the band room. After finally convincing her to go home (gotta love dedication, but I didn't want to be cleaning up puke on a bus), we headed to the game. The school was new and very nice. The field was turf and the bleachers quite large. The only problem: dive-bombing beetles! There were hundreds of them: one hit me just below the eye!!



It was a tough game and by the time we needed to go down to warm up prior to performing, the girls were so 'into it' that it was hard for them to focus. It was also the fastest second quarter in history, so we didn't have time to review all that I wanted to...the girls didn't even have enough time to pray. We performed well (although the second tune was dirty visually, but I knew it would be) and the kids had a nice and uneventful third quarter break.



During the fourth quarter, some children started playing just beneath us in the stands. They were kicking a can as though playing soccer. Once they lost the can, they moved to plastic bottles. Jessica kept getting hit with their plastic bottles, so she told the kids that when they hit her with it, she was going to keep it! She collected 4 bottles before she just gave up. The bottles were also flying into the stands--each time the kids lost one, they would run to 'mommy' or dig through the garbage can for another bottle. These kids were ridiculously disrespectful, distracting, and...well, actually pretty hilarious since I was nowhere near as annoyed as Jessica, Chad, and Darrell!

On the way home, one of the band girls on my bus got very ill. Long story short, we pulled over at a police station and an ambulance came and took her to the hospital. They're still not entirely sure what was wrong, but she was at rehearsal watching today and feels much better. It was a truly scary experience.

About an hour after we got to school, all the kids had gone and we were talking about the show and Saturday's rehearsal and such when a man walked into the bandroom. He asked if we knew where his son (a band kid) was. I think we were all taken aback because we knew that all the kids were gone, but this man was telling us that his son had not yet been picked up. Matthew and I started walking through the areas surrounding the band room yelling the kid's name (as though he were really there and had just been hiding in the restroom for 30 minutes or something)! Apparently the boy had texted his dad to come get him but then hitched a ride with a friend's parent and didn't text his dad to tell him so. I knew all along that we had done nothing wrong, but there was still that initial "oh my goodness, we have lost a kid" fear.

Thankfully, the day ended not long thereafter and I was able to get lots of rest before heading to rehearsal. Despite the rain, we got a lot accomplished at rehearsal and will hopefully have a successful week next week with the exhibition (with fantastic feedback opportunities) at East Coweta on Monday and the competition Saturday at Northgate. I'm praying for sunny days and focused children!