Let’s start with the Disclamer

There are some things in life which a person has been waiting for, and they never even knew they were waiting for it. Wow, that sounded intelligent! If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was one of those inspirational blogs with oboe music and fancy words like transcendental. It’s truly an extravagant word, but all it really means is that you have false teeth. You have transcended taking care of you dental. That should give you “New Age” folks a mantra to meditate on.

  Either way, I liked the line so I’ll say it again. “There are some things in life which a person has been waiting for, and they never even knew they were waiting for it.” This actually happened to me a while back and I have resisted telling the story. The reason I resist is because I know most of you look to these posts as the absolute truth of the day, and what I am about to share with you may be slightly unbelievable. It would be easy for me to say, “This post is the complete and unvarnished truth,” but then again it’s also easy to say, “Cows hatch from eggs, and are the last lifeforms to be transported here from the planet Mars after the dinosaurs defeated the Martians in 65,429,238 BC and destroyed their atmosphere. The Martians retaliated by sending an asteroid our way. They were very sore losers.” See it just rolls off the tongue.

Therefore, without a notary I’m afraid to just spout out random things unless they’re easily proven. I guess I’ll just have to rely on your good faith, but either way just like Dragnet, the story you’re about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the fact that I have a bad memory and can’t remember squat.

My son, The choir and A picnic

My second son is a senior in high school and a lover of the arts, specifically drama and choir. He’s won several awards for his singing and lately he’s started auditioning for the musicals in the local theatres. The thing is he finds musicals annoying and unbelievable. His more technical side just can’t get past those instances where everybody just breaks into song. He’s torn between his love of art and sense of reality. This makes him the perfect fodder for a father’s warped sense of humor. Not that I would abuse my children for my own amusement. It’s just that… Well, actually I would do that, and every day if I can get away with it.

Anyway, my son was telling me that a bunch of his choir friends wanted to have a picnic in the park but between parents work times, rainy days, bad schedules, and toilet training of baby brothers they just couldn’t get together. As the good father I am I said I would take a day off work and help get everyone together. He looked wide-eyed at me. The thought of a parent doing something this nice was alien to him, but we made some calls and sure enough we were able to schedule something for the following Wednesday. My friend Ahmad, Savana’s dad, even took the day off as well. Now we had two vans to pick up kids and managed to get nine choir members, three dogs, two adults and a grill to the park for an epic picnic. I don’t about the kids but this is where Ahmad’s and my fun began.

Who invited th Dads??

We fired up the grill and most of the kids took off and played frisbee or something. Ahmad laughed and noted that for a choir outing he hadn’t heard very much singing. I sniggered and belted out the first few lines of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, but quickly changed the words to suit our situation.

“Is this the real life, is this just fantasy? They’re playing frisbee, and we’re drinking cold iced tea.” Ahmad and I laughed. Then Jeremy looked over my shoulder and continued, “Look at the grill, The meat there is still, so raaaaaaaw.” Well, I won’t go into the whole thing but suffice it to say that several of the guys came back and we rewrote the whole song, to suit our little party. The ladies, not to be outdone, came up with their own song about how weird we were acting. By the time the food was ready we were singing and laughing like a bunch of idiots.

Reality

Remember this was at an open park, on a Wednesday, in the summer. There were lots of people around. Most looked at us like we were off our meds, but some actually sang along. It was great. We took a walk along the creek, and someone came up with a song. We hit the swings; the kids sang like angels. We made a pit stop at the outhouse, and it was Phantom of the Opera with all the echoes and smells from the Paris sewers. Talk about authentic, but I could have done it without the stink. In fact, there were only two kids not having a brilliant time turning the day into a Broadway Musical. My son and Savana. I guess no matter how you look at it, in high school Dads are embarrassing.

Fantasy

By three-o-clock we had sung our little hearts out and were ready to go home. But you know what they say about a good deed? It never goes unpunished. I don’t know who they are, but they’re pretty smart cookies. What Ahmad and I started four hours before was about to stab the two of us in the hearts. As we were packing up, the park naturalist came over to us and told us how much she enjoyed what she had heard. She asked me if she could book our group into the park amphitheater. Ahmad and I are not directors! We are dads! We have absolutely no say in this. So, here’s this lady with schedule in hand wanting a solid date. I did what any yellow-blooded chicken would do, and threw it over to Ahmad and ran away to pack up the grill before anyone caught up with me. He stuttered for three minutes then my son came to his rescue. Apparently, he overheard the conversation, texted the chorale director, was able to set a date with everyone while the adults were peeing their pants in confusion. Also, as he arranged things with the naturalist, Savana got everyone lined up and the whole group did one special song for just her, and well anyone else within ear shot. For two kids who didn’t want to be there they sure as heck knew what was going on.

Leave it to the professionals

Well, the concert was a success, and the park made a lot of cash. The group was a bit bigger and had a real director, instead of two loud, obnoxious dads. The naturalist did mention to a few of the kids that she missed some of the parodies of the park day. I was unavailable for comment. Some embarrassment goes very deep.

I do have one question though; What the heck is my son doing with the chorale director’s contact information in the middle of summer anyway??