Another Concert

Another concert...Two for two in two days.

Russ and I moved mountains. I mean mountains (he moved, I stood by mostly helpless) to put a healthy dinner of chicken breast, quinoa and two vegetables on the table before we rushed off to the BFA concert. As I was rushing out the door to pick up my "baked good" from Food City for the bake sale, the boys asked if they could make chocolate chip cookies while we were gone (oh the irony-couldn't they have made them an hour ago for the bake sale?). First I said "no", then "yes", then "no, okay, yes - do whatever you want as long as you clean the kitchen." I rushed out leaving Russ to bring my dad.

At the concert, by the time I decided where and with whom I was going to sit, I was trotting down the aisle after lights out and had to climb over my dad to take my seat. It took me a while to calm down and sink into the auditorium chair and absorb the music. Shortly, my phone rang and said "HOME' on the screen. I couldn't answer it of course and since I had disturbed everyone in order to sit down I couldn't get back up, emergency or no. So I listened to the BFA band and thought of every possible catastrophe that could have befallen my boys: They blew up the oven or burned the house down. The guy I heard about who is purported to be a fake vacuum salesman and who pushes the person who answers the door into the house and robs them or worse came by and the boys answered the door. Ethan finally killed Johnny or vise versa. I had visions of my gray (years ago they were white) carpets covered in the blood of my babes (it is hard to even write that). I finally decided to text a neighbor, which was difficult because after yesterday's concert, Russ told me about Frank's speech before the show telling what he was going to do to people who were caught texting during the performance. I was late so I didn't get the memo. So when I didn't hear in nanoseconds from the first neighbor, I texted another, and then another to ask them to call the boys and ascertain that they had not been blown up or bludgeoned. As people have lives and perhaps might be busy or not have their phone on, I was tapping my fingers and wondering why I wasn't getting an IMMEDIATE response. Finally one person said she would call. I waited. It didn't occur to me that she might be attending her kid's baseball game and witnessing a great play by her son and not sitting at her kitchen table waiting for me to call with a myriad of emergencies. So at the intermission I jumped over my dad and went to call the boys.

"Hi, Johnny, are you okay?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, why didn't you leave a VOICEMAIL???"
"Because I never leave voicemails."
"Well, what did you call me for in the middle of a concert?"
"We were just wondering if we could have some ovaltine."
"OVALTINE? You called me at a concert to ask if you could have some OVALTINE?
"Yeah. So can we?"
"I thought you were going to make cookies."
"We already made the cookies. Can we have one?"
"I don't care if you raid the LIQUOR CABINET - just don't call me at a concert to ask me first, leaving me with terrible visions of your violent demise..." (NO I did NOT say that, for the record. Should I type that twice just in case you are skimming and call the authorities or decide that you will never ever send your kid over here?)
"Do you know how many people I called to check on you?"
"Yeah. they called us. So can we have a cookie and some Ovaltine?"
"Yes. I gotta go. And the kitchen had better be clean when we get home."

On the way back to the concert I stopped to talk to the French teacher who was working late, and I of course in an attempt not to be rude, I was ignoring all of Russ' texts imploring me to tell him if his boys were alive and well and not at the Emergency room or worse. "Are they okay? Shall I go home??? Hello, HELLO???"
By this time it was past lights out again and I had to make the walk of shame (sound familiar? I make a lot of those) - okay, I just have to jump in here and, pardon the enormous digression - I always have Russ read these posts just in case I'm really screwing up and he pointed out that "the walk of shame" is, well, what you probably think it is. He looked it up in the urban dictionary so I'll just let you find out for yourself (by clinking the link I mean, not by going out and experiencing it - although, hey, don't let me stop you if that is what you really want) - make sure you read the long definition as it is quite funny - I had to convince Russ that I did not write it myself- and after you surf the interned for 20 minutes make sure you can pick up the rest of the sentence that I just so rudely chopped up with all this stuff about walks of shame - and the most important thing is that I clarify that with this new clarification, I have made a very small number of these and not lots - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=walk+of+shame (back to the story here)... and climb back over my dad to enjoy the concert - as much as anyone can who is sitting behind a guy who is holding his ipad in front of one's face so it is not in front of his own.