The Severed Cortex

The Concert That Was

A couple of weeks ago I got a call on my cell phone from Robert's mother while at work. While that has happened in the past, it is a rare occurrence. Every time it did happen, let's just say it never turned out good for Robert. This time, it turns out, he was not in trouble.

Mom: Did Robert tell you he had a concert tonight?
Me: Uh, no.
Mom: He has a concert tonight.

Of course he was in trouble for not telling me, but it wasn't like he was in big trouble.

I headed home to pick up Nancy and we proceeded to the lovely, greater Alton/Godfrey area. And then after much wandering around the Lewis and Clark campus, we finally figured which building they were in. Just in time too. We walked in just as it started, fumbled around in the dark, and wound up sitting next to Robert's mom and sister.
I have to say I was expecting it to be a band concert of the insufferable variety, just like the one I suffered through shortly before Christmas. However, this one turned out to be a choir concert where the kids demonstrated some of the new music equipment, the teaching method used to teach them music, and then they put on a play. Not just any play for 5th graders.

Me: Hey! What a minute! This play is propaganda.
Nancy: Shutup. And stop making me laugh.

The play was about a kid who wanted to stop practicing music, but the other kids talked her in to sticking with music because music is everywhere. The boys dressed up in jeans, t-shirts, and sunglasses and the girls dressed in skirts and scarves. They also wore shirts too because that would be sort of twisted if they didn't. They sang songs from the movie Grease although they twisted the lyrics to fit the play. While I joke about the whole thing, it really was quite a production for 5th graders. The kids who had the speaking parts were very good, especially the precocious girl who played the lead. You could tell that Robert was not excited about being in the production, but other times he got caught up in the music. It was funny to watch.

The Concert That Wasn't

The next week Robert did tell me he had a band concert. In fact, I talked to his mother when I took him home that day to make sure it was at his grade school and not at Lewis and Clark where the play was held. As it turned out, it was also the day that my friend Nancy and I had planned to switch vehicles. She needed to borrow my truck to move some yard mulch. In exchange, I was to drive her car home that night. This is what her car looks like:

Yes, that's right. She traded me her all wheel drive race car for my manual transmission, 6 cylinder, Dodge truck. And I thought that after the band concert Robert and I could have some fun riding in it. Before the concert I had some fun in it of my own, driving it the back way to Alton from work via highway 94 through the desolate part of St. Charles county. I took some turns at 70 mph and could have easily taken them much faster. It handled like a dream and the only thing I could find wrong with it was that she needed to dial in 2nd gear by stretching it out a little more on the top and bottom.
As it turns out, while I was off in my own world driving much faster than I should have been, Robert's mother was frantically trying to call me. Unfortunately for me, I managed to glance at my phone about a mile from Robert's school, which was way too late. She was trying to call me to tell me not to show up. Robert wasn't going to be able to go because he hadn't been following the rules at home. He had been warned, chose not to heed said warning, and then suffered the consequences. I showed up over there to talk to him and basically tried to point out that there are consequences to his actions. I'm sure it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

I got Nancy's car up to 110 mph on New Poag Road on the way home.