Re: [Or] An Experiment In Reality
October 7, 2006
6:00 A.M.
Waking up was miserable. I felt a little sick and a little tired, but that is why God invented energy drinks, but I couldn’t have one just yet. I had to pack. I packed my normal equipment, DS with games, a good book to read, WAY to much food to eat by myself. My dad was taking me to the school, so I knew that he would wait until the last possible moment to go and then blame me for being late. I knew the entire morning procedure, and performed without a hitch.
We arrived at the school about five minutes before the band left. I caught the last minute announcements. I handed Shahida said she was tired, so I handed her one of my last energy drinks, and we had a little cheesy toast. Soon, I was shoved unto the bus, and the trip began.
It started like any other field trip, starting out with chitchat and homework, along with the premature eating of snacks. That deteriorated to chitchat, joke telling, more snack eating, and video games. Finally, it degenerated to what all bus rides degenerate into, singing. But this was a bus trip, so most of the upper classmen sang last years show, the music of Ray Charles. I of course, joined in.
Halfway to Prosser we stopped at a park and had an hour rehearsal to address last minute issues. My section leader was working on my last good nerve, I basically told her to piss off and leave me alone and ignored her for the rest of the practice. After the practice it was just a little further to The Cavalcade Of Bands.
We were scheduled to be the first to perform after lunch. We were in the AAA large division, which was an upgrade from AAA small, which was our division last year. Before we knew it, the time had come for us to enter preliminary competition. There was a lot of stopping and starting, with us at attention constantly.
Our director had made me put my slightly long hair into a tiny ponytail, which at the time was digging into the back of my head, giving me a headache. But alas, we had to perform. Our show was Spices, consisting of five songs, Cayenne Pepper, Oregano, Paprika, Ginger, and Curry Powder. We performed as best we could, and in eight short minutes, it was all over.
Upon reaching our designated place, we were all pumped. We hastily ate the food that the Davis Band Boosters provided, and went back to the stadium to see the other bands perform. Royal had done Nintendo classics, which I had unfortunately missed. The rest of the shows were good. The last band to perform before finals announcements was Mead.
Mead is the school that wins, in everything, except for having a soul. The charge for joining Mead is $2,000 dollars, upfront. Not only that, but you get demerits for doing the wrong things. Three demerits, and you are out of the band. You don’t get your money back. If you have an unexcused absence, you get replaced. There is a waiting list of roughly fifty people at any given moment, waiting to join. They learn the music with the chance of never performing it, ever. At Mead, sports schedule themselves around band. That’s how serious they take it. Drill is learned in sectionals or solo, it is not taught during practice.
Mead does not have a soul, but they do win. Mead’s show this year, was hilarious, me and my friend spent all of our time making fun of it by narrating it. It was an average day in the life of some guy. It started like this. Oh look at the time! I better pick up my rifle and spin it to make sure it still works. It’s a good thing I’m a ninja, because it also functions as a bow staff. We just went on and on. The show was well done, the music and drill was just stupid.
And soon it was time for finals announcements. We won. And by we won I mean we won absolutely nothing. We even sang a spontaneous group parody of We Are The Champions as we left. It went like this: They kicked our asses, they kicked our asses, we are the losers cuz they kicked our asses. We weren’t that downtrodden though, we only missed finals by four points.
There was a little time before finals for everyone to mellow out. My friend Danny and I discussed material for my new television show that he was going to be co-hosting. Having come up with some good ideas, we watch. Danny and I sat in an area far away from everyone else with Danny’s girlfriend, and me and him “narrated” the finals competition through the judge’s perspectives. It was rather entertaining. We ended up developing a creepy English guy voice, which we planned to use in our show.
We were not able to watch the end of finals, because we needed to head back home. The bus ride home was similar to the one to Cavalcade, except singing was banned, and people were hoarse from yelling.
I continued to use my creepy English guy voice until I got home which was around 10:30 P.M. I called up Shahida and talked to her for a few minutes. Turned out that she had broken up with her boyfriend during the day, which meant two things. 1. She was single. 2. She needed a date to homecoming. I proceeded to ask her, but was deflated upon getting a maybe. Apparently she thought of asking her ex-boyfriend instead of asking me. That makes perfect sense except for the part where it doesn’t. Within ten minutes of hanging the phone up I was comatose in bed.
11:00 P.M.
5,698 words
I would REALLY appreciate some form of feedback on my work, but I'm not going to say the immature "I'm not going to post anymore until I get feedback" thing.