Having a teenager in marching band is like being in a cult. You are sucked in slowly, starting in sixth grade, and before you know it- bam! You're wearing a band mom T-shirt, working in a concession stand at football games, and putting band stickers on your vehicle.
I should have known something was up at the end of my daughter's fifth grade year, when we went over to the middle school to sign up for band and get an instrument assigned. It was determined that she and the clarinet would be a good match, so I went over to sign up for a clarinet.
Music store guy: The clarinet will be $40 and then the insurance and loss waiver is another $10.
Me: $50? Wow, that's not bad at all. I thought it would be more.
Music store guy: A month. For four years.
Me: Are you serious? $2500 for a clarinet? (thinking, does it HAVE to be band? What about choir?)
Then the clarinet came home. The first month it was like hearing a dying elephant. The sound was horrifying. Our elderly border collie went and hid under the bed, whimpering. The noise-sensitive sibling would walk around with his hands over his ears, grimacing in pain. The entire household and the neighbors surrounding us for about a 5 mile radius were all suffering. But lo and behold- one evening I was in the kitchen, baking- and instead of screeching and wailing, I heard actual music coming from the sixth-grader's room. It was a MIRACLE!
Three years later, I'm sitting in the high school band hall, listening to the Head Band Mom explain the rules of the Band Family Cult. For example, you have no life between August 1 and the end of marching season in November. Make no plans. It reminded me of being a park ranger, when you worked on the 4th of July unless you had a funeral to attend (your own) or you were in active labor (female rangers only- if your wife was in active labor, you were out of luck). At first I thought they were kind of joking, and then I got the Band Schedule, which started out:
August 1: First Day of Marching Practice, 7AM-12 Noon/7 PM to 9 PM.
7 AM, I thought. That's not too bad. We live 5 minutes from the high school. Then my daughter clarifies the situation for me.
Me: I guess we can leave around 6:55 AM for the school.
Teenager: MOM! We have to leave around 6 AM! That means be ON THE FIELD READY TO MARCH AT 7 AM! I have to do all this (band related preparation stuff that the Band Mom of No does not understand, but is obviously extremely important to the teenager).
Then, a few weeks later, I find myself in a concession stand. Making nachos. Working in a concession stand is also a lot like being a park ranger, except you stay in one place and you have no citation book. Just like in the parks, most people are great, but you have the occasional kid that wants to give you a $100 bill for a $.50 piece of candy, or the guy that said "Maybe if they paid the employees more they could get faster workers". Uh, dude, seriously? We're volunteers! Chill! You can wait 3 minutes for a churro!
Band kids are probably some of the most dedicated teenagers on the planet. They get up at 0530 hours in the summer to march around on a hot parking lot in 100 degree weather for hours. They have no weekends free in the fall. They're either playing at a football game or at a marching contest. They arrive home after an away game at midnight and then sit at the kitchen table until 2 AM doing their Geometry homework. They have no time to get into trouble because they're either marching, doing homework, or sleeping. Somehow, they manage to march in patterns while playing music that they have less than two months to learn from scratch, and they make it look like they've been doing it forever.
Last week, I was at the high school football game. I don't really know anything about football, I was there to see the band show. Our team was
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