Faking it

I played the clarinet when I was in 4th grade. I picked it because it was the cat part in "Peter and the Wolf", and as we all know, cats are great. However, I quickly learned that it was very hard. I also got grossed out by all the spit and saliva involved in woodwind instruments.

Even though I hated it and never practiced, I was still obligated to perform at the recital. My dad dropped me off, and as I was coming out of the car, I dropped my clarinet case. It was a hard shell case, designed to withstand 4th graders, so I didn't think anything of it. I went to the band room, put my clarinet together, blew into the reed, and heard nothing. That's when I noticed that the main body of my (rented) clarinet SPLIT IN HALF! I knew my dad would be pissed because all year long I'd been hearing about how expensive the damn thing was.

Anyway, I freaked out. I was about to perform in front of the whole school, and I was certain that my dad was going to kill me. I explained all this to my band teacher, this sad middle aged man. He shrugged and said, "Get up there and fake it."

So I did. I faked playing the song in front of everyone - parents, teachers, friends. At the end of the performance, my band teacher joined us on stage. He looked at me, smiled, then got on the microphone. "Oh shit," I thought, "He's gonna tell..."

And I was right! He said, "One of my students, Elaine Carroll, broke her clarinet so she was wasn't actually playing just then, she was pretending." The whole room burst out laughing. "She's worried her dad is gonna kill her."

I saw my dad laughing the hardest out of everybody. I started laughing too. I guess it was pretty funny.

I'm sure my dad wasn't thrilled about having to pay for my broken clarinet, but he never mentioned it. He was still laughing as we drove home.