Yet ANOTHER run in with a plant...

Ya'll may or may not know that I sing. It's something I really enjoy doing and I have been immersed in music and music performance since I can remember breathing. Sometimes, though, the love affair has it's moments.

You see, there was supposed to be a nice calm break in the set today during which I sat on a stool minding my own business and looking professional. However, once all the other musicians were seated, I was left without a chair bringing a new and embarrassing meaning to musical chairs. One singer who shall remain nameless because, well...because...began wandering around the stage trying to give me his chair (which I wasn't going to take because then I'd have ended up on the wrong side). It took about three people to put him back in his chair and I made the executive decision to slip off to the side and sit behind the piano which is usually a clear shot.

Usually.

So...I turn around to do just that and stare at the narrowest opening I've ever seen.

Not only that, the opening is between a decorative railing that I know from experience to be tipsy (another story for another time) and a fake potted plant. So...

I head through the opening like I was supposed to be going there. I discovered that there was an amorphous pile of crap just on the other side and end up perched precariously on the drum platform and crouched over like I'm not there.

The allotted time passes. Slowly.

I get up to return to the stage and find that the precarious railing is oscillating. So I make yet another executive decision and grasp the railing as I pass through the narrow gap on my way to my spot. The railing becomes still and out of the corner of my eye, I see that I caught ONE leaf of the fake plant with my right foot. ONE.

The fake plant, the decorative urn that contained it (notice the past tense) and the bark chips that disguised the imaginary root wad defy gravity or any other force for that matter and launch toward the front row like an exploding football.

The urn hits the ground with a ringing thung and the shower of bark chips spatters to the ground and the "plant" was left capsized right next to me as if to say "It's all her fault!"

Of course, at this point, I was wishing I was NOT part of anything at all. Over half the members of the sound booth had disappeared which indicated they'd collapsed in laughter. The one that remained standing is notorious for snapping pics with his iPhone, so I'm sure this whole thing will be immortalized on YouTube. Some kind soul returned the plant to the urn and put it right next to me (gee, thanks), but gave up retrieving bark chips once they discovered it was a lost cause.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time putting bark chips back where I found them, and I started thinking about other little mishaps that have lined the hall of funnies along the way...

Here are just a few:

1. Earlier this year, I was holding a friend's newborn before a performance and he yakked up an entire 9 oz. bottle of formula all over the front of my t-shirt. I sang in the puke and now I always have an extra t-shirt in my bag.

2. One Christmas, I was wearing a loose-fitting stretchy dress and as I exited the stage, the girl behind me stepped on the hem and the entire thing stretched clean off my body.

3. Yet another Christmas, my cousin and I were doing a ballet number while a laser show was going on (sounds cornier than it really was, though I never had the privilege of watching it). We had to stopped exactly on our mark or we'd get zapped. Said laser zapped my skirt and burnt a hole clean through it. Twice.

4. I was directing a marching band once and was standing on a large box so that I could be seen. I sort of forgot where I was and backed completely off the box and discovered exactly why your rump is padded the way it is. I had been laughed off said box many times before...and I was always glad my backside was to the stands.

5. The orchestra PIT is so named because once you are off the stage the distance to the ground is unbelievably far and I am not even going to admit how I learned that.

6. Musically speaking, I've gotten lost, forgotten words, sung the wrong words, come in early, come in late, and every permutation thereof.

7. Prior to the plant wrestling experience of this morning, the best screw-up by far was a mistaken entrance. I just got up and walked on to the stage at the WRONG TIME!!!!! The girl I was singing with followed me (I'm pretty sure she doesn't trust me any more). When I realized I was wrong, I stopped. She didn't. She crashed into me full force and we did a Three Stooges thing there for what seemed like forever before we could get turned back around and exit.

Do these things happen to other people? Yeah, they do. Probably not as often, but yeah they do. It must have to do with the cosmic plan to keep me humble, I don't know. I keep thinking it'll get better with age and confidence, but no. I remain a magnet for the weird and bizarre no matter what I am doing. Nevertheless, I have fun. So what if I am remembered as that girl who kicked the plant into the audience?

Gotta run, I'm off to another rehearsal for a Christmas program and then later tonight I shall test my memory as I sing a song I haven't actually done in about a month (totally not a good idea, but circumstance has set me up on this one). Somewhere in all this I have to get Squib ready to go see his dad and dress him up as Bob the Builder for the fall festival thing I'm singing at. Not necessarily in that order. I may be all funned out already.

Fake it til you make it,

Scat