She had the horn but it wasn't my bag, baby
At my rough comprehensive you were indeed very lucky if you were one of the few trusted by the music department to look after one of their prized instruments. You got free lessons and something to take you away from the daily grind of living in urban Fife *shudder*.

The first and foremost piece of responsibility for holders of musical instruments is obviously not to lose the fucking thing. Something a girl on my street Leslie very nearly managed to do by leaving it on a manky Moffatt & Williamson school bus. And to be fair to her Leslie did take the ribbing we all gave her very well, she was just so ecstatic that after many calls to the bus company and depot, it finally led her to getting her French Horn back within the week.

It was the first day of taking her horn back to school for a lesson and as she was smiling away on the bus ride home she knew she wouldn't be making the same mistake again.

"Don't lose your horn now Leslie." I joked.

"Very funny. *taps case* I won't." and with that she alighted, horn securely by her side.

As I mentioned, Leslie and I both lived on the same street but our school bus took a long, windy route. If you were feeling particularly energetic you could get off at an earlier stop and walk a small distance getting home perhaps a minute or two quicker. On this day that's exactly what Leslie did while I, slothfully stayed sitting on my big fat ass. About halfway into her walk home, Leslie realised that yes, she had her French Horn, but she had completely forgotten about her school bag! She'd made exactly the same mistake - only the items had changed.

Leslie started running. If she was quick enough she might be able to catch up the bus on its windy path and get there ahead of it in time to reclaim her bag. As her doc martins pounded the tarmac the unthinkable happened: the clip from her case came loose and the French horn went flying into the air before abruptly grinding to a halt on the pavement. She stopped briefly to survey the damage and repack her horn before resuming her sprint, this time with the case clasped tightly in her arms.

Leslie approached the entrance to our street and the sight of me standing there informed her that she was too late. The sight of me pointing my arm out at her and pissing myself laughing was enough to break her. I've heard the expression "burst into tears" many times but I've rarely seen it demonstrated with such gruesome reality as Leslie managed that day. The poor girl frustrated with impotent rage knew she would have to go through the same ordeal to get her school bag back and endure the embarrassment of committing the same stupid mistake again. All the while her dick of a neighbour was pointing and laughing her.

It didn't take long for me to stop.

"Leslie, Leslie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's ok, I took your bag off the bus. I just hid it round the corner."

Bag and girl reunited, the tears stopped flowing soon afterwards. So perhaps I'm not going to hell after all. Don't worry, none of us are. When you die that's it, there is no afterlife people. So make a fool of yourself and do something nice while you still can - you never know when you'll run out of chances.
( djtrialprice, Thu 11 Dec 2008, 16:53, Reply)