MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: HE HAS CAST DOWN THE MIGHTY FROM THEIR THRONES

So,

 

I like to go to concerts.  Not rock concerts . . . well, I do like the occasional rock concert but that is not what this post is about.  It's about going to concerts where the audience is expected to listen.  And I liked to consider myself a normal guy who happens to enjoy going to listen to the creations of persons who, in their own day, were considered the equivelent of rock stars (althought rock n' roll did not yet exist) but that today we give their music the unfortunate moniker of "classical."  Then I discovered, much to my dismay, that I am a snob.  I am.  I am a snob.

 

Not a snob because I happen to like classical music.  That in itself does not make a person a snob unless one is snobbish about it.  The kind of snob I am talking about is that I thought I was a superior audience member.

 

(I can't believe I am actually telling you this.  I think it is because it is my public penance for a private sin.)

 

Here is what I talking about.  I considered myself above hoi polloi who make announcements such as this one necessary:

I mean, there you are, in the middle of a quite interlude of music and someone goes to town like an asthmatic cow that just swallowed a wasp.

The word in the bubble was supposed to be "Really?"

I think of all the things I was taught to avoid interrupting other people's enjoyment of a production.  Swallow.  Live with it until a more appropriate time.  Breathe deeply.

 

Seriously, couldn't these rude people hold on to their discomfort for a few moments???  Come on! 

 

It reminds of the line from the movie "Shakespeare in Love" in which a young William, angry at his audience, blurts out, "Will Shakespeare has a play!  Let us go and cough through it!"

 

Now mind you, this was all just in my head.  But it was there none-the-less.

 

Then it happened to me.  You know those little plastic swords that they pierce blue cheese stuffed olives with to put in a dirty martini (I only know because I Googled it), it felt like the devil himself jabbed one into the back of my throat.

It was the most exquisite pain ever.

Of course it was during the longest, quietest part of the whole concert.  Nothing I did would relieve it in the least.  I tried swallowing.  Nope.  Ignoring it.  Nope.  It was becoming a bit difficult even to just muscle through.  It was like in the movie "Alien" where Sigourny Weaver is trying not let the baby alien burst out of her body.  Impossible.  I had to try a very subtle clearing of my throat.

It was a waste of time and just added to the annoyance.  The devil in my throat just laughed, jabbed the little plastic sword deeper and started twisting it.  Seriously.

Christ hung on a cross for THREE HOURS and I couldn't take a tiny plastic sword in the back of my throat for three minutes.  I had no soothing throat lozenges with me because of course I would never need them.

My willpower faded like a spring pansy in a late August drought and finally I gave in and let go with a true, loud, horrible cough.

I would like to take this opportunity to truly apologize to anyone about whom I may have thought of poorly because you had to cough during a concert or play.  I now realize that there may have been no other alternative and until I am willing to sit through a concert with a plastic sword in the back of my throat, I shall no longer think the worst but assume you had no other choice.

 

God bless you.