Monday, August 28, 2006

Gutted

Alas, Saturday was not all that could be hoped...

I got to bed early on Friday night, having set my alarm clock. Then, as is my wont, I woke up just before the alarm went off, and struggled out of bed. 4:30 is not a good time to be getting up, and now its evils are compounded by the fact that the sun hasn't bothered to rise at that time yet.

Anyway, I had my breakfast, and went for my morning shower. It was then that things started to go wrong. The light in my bathroom has been a bit temperamental of late, and on Saturday it finally gave up the ghost, without even having the decency to don a white sheet. (I fixed it yesterday. In addition to being a musicial par excellence, a wizard in the kitchen, and knig of all dungeon masters, I am the greatest electrician in the world. Or, alternatively, it turned out to be a slightly loose wire, so I just tightened it up a bit.)

After showering in the pitch dark, I got dressed and left the appartment.

The journey to the competition was fine. Second breakfast was rather expensive, but also fine. (Well, not the best, it must be admitted. Dodgy cheeseburger does not make for the best morning repast.) We went for our pre-competition practice.

The practice was good. The band was sounding fine. We were ready to compete. So, we waited, knowing we were ready; we needed a quick tune of the pipes and we were on.

Except that the adjutant suddenly appeared, and we had to go NOW NOW NOW! No time for a quick tune of the pipes. We hustled to the ground, and rushed on.

It did not do our performance any good. The start was sloppy. The main body of the play was no better than okay, and the stop was really bad, with a trailing drone - a textbook mistake that no-one should be making at that level. (My own play was fine. But that was small consolation under the circumstances.)

So, we were out in the first round. And the worst thing was that we all knew we deserved to be out.

At this point it was 11:45, so a couple of us headed to the pub for a couple of pints. You might think it was a bit early, but remember that I'd been up for more than 7 hours by that point.

After that, I split from the group and went to get a pizza, fully intending on meeting up with them back at the bus. However, they didn't make it to the bus for quite some time. And, once I got back to the bus having had lunch (about 2:30), my exhaustion hit me. I had set myself the mental target of getting to the end of the competition, I'd done that, so I suddenly found myself out on my feet. Not good.

Anyway, the other half of the band returned about 5, and moaned at me because they hadn't been able to find me, and had been intent on taking me out for many many drinks. We proceeded to have a couple more drinks, this time from the epic carry-out that we'd all chipped in for, while mulling over the judges' remarks, which weren't too hopeful. And then it was time for the big parade, the finale to our day.

This was the point where things really started to go downhill. It was very evident that virtually everyone in the band was really drunk. (My own state was such that I couldn't have driven, and my balance was slightly off. Otherwise, I was fine. Annoyingly, alcohol does absolutely nothing for my inhibitions - I get really quiet when drunk.) So, the plan was to march the parade while wearing a succession of silly hats, masks, and false breasts that the band had purchased during the day. (I did find myself wondering if you could be done for "being in charge of a band while under the influence.")

That wasn't the bad bit. One of our drummers decided that it was "drunken challenge" time.

I've had to delete a large chunk of this post now. The subject of the drunken challenge, and quite why I found it so difficult to bear is something I still can't write about. So, it'll have to wait for another time. Suffice to say, it was just about the only thing that I just could not face, and even thinking about left me wanting to run away and hide. (Oh, and it was in no way illegal. Given that, there's virtually nothing that has that effect on me. I can and have sung in public, conducted a children's choir without ever practicing beforehand, and I deal with complex problems on a daily basis. I reckon I could probably take a decent stab at rocket science if I were so inclined; I could certainly learn to do it. But this? No, absolutely not.)

It would have been fine - I could just have ignored him - except that he just would not shut up about the challenge, and how he was going to win, and on and on and on.

After about 15 minutes of this, I was done for. I don't think I said a single word to a single person for the rest of the night - certainly nothing beyond "Yes, please" or "No, thanks". We did the parade, headed home, and I flopped into bed. I think it was 10:30 that I got to bed. I hoped to sleep for at least 12 hours; I woke up at 7:30.

Saturday was not a good day.

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