let the children sing

I arrive moments before a grade school concert and I am in a packed gym. Even finding standing room vacancy ain't gonna be happening. Goddamn, these parents and grandparents are committed. And all those minivans taking up all that space means I practically had to park in the next county.  I see my daughter eight bleachers up and I need to squirm and thread my way through a lot of adult bodies encased in heavy winter coats.  I plunge in and suddenly arms and hands are reaching to assist me although I thought I was doing okay and some old geezer has his hand on my thigh. I get handed up to the spot next to Carrie without touching the floor murmuring, "next week the wheelchair."  In the eyes of the general public I look fragile and ancient.

The music teacher wants us to introduce ourselves to the people around us, "because those people are also here to nurture a child."   I'm here because if I wasn't my grandson will make me feel evil and guilty and annihilate me with those puppy dog eyes and he knows I attended his brother's basketball game earlier in the day. And the lady to my left identifies herself as Grandma Kitty "to an adorable first grader!" Seems like a lengthy title and she is perky and annoying and I think she wants to jump in my lap so I turn hastily to my daughter, "okay, that's enough introduction." I've already told my husband long ago I do not need to meet any more people, ever and Grandma Kitty keeps leaning into me and nudging me with her elbow every time her grandson blinks. I'm hot and sweaty and I want to take my coat off but I have a stained t-shirt underneath and I didn't have time to shower after my exercise routine. I am unacceptable on so many levels.

Each class of students stands in the center of the gym and sings their tunes and the theme of this concert is water, probably taken right out of some music teacher magazine that the director gets every month and it seems like a pretty weak excuse for entertainment.  The kindergartners are fun to watch because a couple of them always cry and that breaks the monotony. Thank God that's not my kid, we're all muttering under our collective breath.

At last we are relieved of our familial duties after an hour and fifteen minutes of enforced sitting on those hard wooden bleachers.  We would have been released earlier but the student teacher from Bogota had taught the fifth graders this boring, repetitive Hispanic dance that was trapped in some eternal mariachi loop. Dear God, when will this end?  I just want my couch and a drink.
Out into the blessed cold and I begin my walk to the next county.