So Maggie and I were sitting at our concession stand booth, eating concessions of course, when one of our adult leaders came up and gave us a stack of "Free Haircut" coupons for Sports Clips( that place uptown). She said "if you could hand these out to the customers, that would be great". A man walked up. He asked for a bottle of water. We exchanged money with water and before he turned around Maggie said "Would you like a free haircut?" And handed him the coupon. He took it and examined it. Then he gave us this sideways glance and said "I don't need a haircut" all three of us just looked awkwardly back and forth at eachother for awhile until we realized he was bald
. "Oh my god!" Maggie said, "I'm so sorry!" He just stared at us.
"You're real funny." He said kind of rudely and walked away. It was a complete accident, Maggie had decided a minute before that she would hand out the coupons to everyone that came. And of course the first person had to be bald.
After about 10 minutes of being on the floor cracking up, we collected our selves and caught up with our breath. And then we starting cracking up for another 5 minutes. Once we were completely stable, we gave a few more customers their snacks and then sat patiently and waited. Another man came up, this one was elderly. "Hi how can I-" before we could finish our cheerful greeting, he grabbed the cash box. We didn't know what to do. As we sat stunned, this man, who had given no introduction, took the wad of money and started counting it out! We were so surprised! Who would expect a nice elderly gentleman to rob a church? He said "let's see what we got. 1,2,3,4" and counted all the money out. When he was done he said " Alright I'll take this to the, uh, safe." When he left I ran up to get one of our leaders. I described what he looked like and what he did. All of the parents just began laughing at us really hard. Apparently that man was the church treasurer. Gee, he could've told us that before giving us false pretensions that he was robbing us!
Immediately after this, we went back to our table. There were several high school students there surrounding one of there teachers.i recognized this teacher immediately. It was Mr. Matter. We had already made a bald man angry, been "robbed", and now he just had to show up. If you don't know Mr Matter consider yourself lucky. He's the high school band teacher at Maine south. He found out I wasn't taking band next year. I didn't even know that he knew my name. But he said
"Oh look students! It's Emily! She's going to Maine south next year!" And gave me a look that showed pure hatred for not continuing with his band program. He said "walk with me, Emily." And he walked me down the hall. Luckily Maggie followed close behind. I don't know how I could've handled Mr. matter alone. This was mr matters weird conversation with me (please note: I omitted all of the bizarre sound effects he made only because I couldn't spell them. But he made many.):
Mr M:"Who's your friend?"
Me:"Oh this is Maggie"
Mr M:"Hello, Maggie."
Maggie: " hi..."
Mr M: " so no pressure nor anything, I know you've heard this all before but I'd just like to let you know something. Did you know that band is a class? So it's an easy A. And all my students say that they can just ( sound effect here) unwind during band. Ya know? Listen, I heard your a good clarinetist. I heard you're good. (Head nods vigorously) I heard you're good. I heard your good. ( insert 20 seconds of awkward eye contact) are you good, Emily? Because i heard you are.
Me: "um.."
Mr M: " it's ok Emily. I get it. You're good. No pressure or anything. No pressure at all. You know I have a motor cycle and tattoos, I'm like, cool. Ok? There are somedays where I can be grumpy like ( insert sound effect) but you know (leans in to my personal space and frames face with hands) this here is pretty much what you get. This is what you get. Band is fun, ok? Ok. You know that last piece my band played? Amazing right? Well I hate to be like (insert sound effect) but my band is good. You don't get a good band often. I could count all the good bands on one hand. So think about it, Emily. It's not too late to change your mind. No pressure, but if you don't join, I'll embarrass you in front of her ( jabs finger in Maggie's face) and many others every day in the hallways. No pressure. Now go do what you've gotta do. But think about it. Because I want to work with you, Emily. Every. Single. Day. Goodbye."
Maggie and I looked at eachother and ran upstairs to my mom, who said
" Do you know what's weird?"
Me: " what?"
Mom: "mr matter called me on my cell phone, and then came here to talk to me about you joining band."
So he's a creep. He pretty much just sealed the deal for me. I am not spending every day of my life with that crazy man. I wil be looking over my shoulder for the rest if my life, now.