Does 4th count ?
Or does it matter that I actually have a tale to tell.

Set the wayback machine to about 1977, Star wars, platform shoes, and Oh yeah, Disco was big...

As usual the parts had been handed out more or less randomly once Mary, Joseph and the kings were allocated. Once those coveted parts were gone nobody seemd to care who was playing what But I, I knew, this was my moment to shine...

So, come the week of the play itself, teachers had cleared the gym hall and set out chairs for the audience, parents had slaved over "costume" for their little darlings and the rehersals were going from bad to worse.

It was the cuing that was the trouble. I knew I came last, after the kings, after the donkey, after the sheep who were promising extra wool to keep the new messiah warm, they came after the cow. Who for all I remember may well have been promising extra bullshit to help him get started on that bible thing.
The cow was a professional, stand up, face audience, do line, sit down again. Even now I applaud the rock solid delivery of whichever poor seven year old had to repeat their line so many times that its very content is erased from my mind. Leaving only the memory of a white romper suit with black splodges and an alice band sporting a jaunty pair of cardboard cut out horns.

But the sheep, oh gods the sheep... Three of the four sheep were the class thickies, the ones who weren't allowed sharp pencils and were still on the pale blue reading books. The rest of us were on red, red books had a question sheet at the back so you'd have something to do for the other 30 mins of the 40 minute reading session.
The fourth sheep was the the poor chap that even the thickies thought was a bit slow on the uptake, twice the size of us other kids, posessed of huge ham like fists that would have beaten us tiny ones to a pulp if he'd had even an ounce of malice in him and a forehead so sloping that flies used to waterski down it on the back of sweat droplets.
Four sheep, one line, one "baa" in unison and let the rest of us get on with it.
This was the chap who, rehersal after rehersal would have to be prodded gently by the long suffering teacher and reminded that it was his turn.

So come the night itself, the hall is hushed. The audience are filing slowly in to take their places. I am resplendant in my chicken costume, and the cow has been briefed to prod the sheep at the appropriate moment.

The beginning passed in a haze of anticipation. Mary, Joseph, Innkeeper, no room, stables. Bosh.
Animals pile out, surround the dodgy looking straw filled wooden box that's serving as a manger, and the kings just happen to turn up before there's time for anyone to get bored.
Gold, Frankisence, Myrhh, no problem. Animals start up with the promises. Donkey, sorted. Cow, a rock as ever. Sheep, pause, sheep...?
Fuck me he did it, slowly and carefully recited his line, into the silent hall, went "baa" with the other sheep and sat down.

My cue at last! This was my moment to stand up and proudly declare that as stable rooster I would refuse to crow so that baby jebus wouldn't get woken up in the morning...

The audience, poitely, carefuly, and utterly silent until this point, could cope no longer. The laugh that rang round the hall on that evening will stick with me to my dying day.

Every so often my chums tell me I should do stand up comedy. But I can't, every laugh takes me straight back to standing in that hall wearing a chicken hat and a distressingly orange poncho covered in all the stapled on paper feathers I could colour in.
Infront of an audience of adults who were loudly pissing* themselves with laughter and feeling like the biggest cock in the world...

*May not contain actual piss
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 26 Mar 2009, 17:49, 4 replies)

?
Am I missing something here? Why did the grown ups laugh?
(kitescreech still here, Sat 28 Mar 2009, 17:36, closed)

I'm thinking
exactly the same thing. We seem to be missing a punchline. Some sort of cock pun surely?
( pixel_fucker is going to need a bigger brush, Sun 29 Mar 2009, 13:55, closed)

Alas...
No, you're not missing something. If I knew why they chose that moment to lose the plot I'd post it. Thy just pissed themselves laughing.
I dunno, perhaps at the idea of a huge chicken that speaking to them, perhaps the sheep chose that moment to flop his knob out. History does not record...
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Mon 30 Mar 2009, 13:56, closed)

well then...
make something up, dammit! This is the internet, we don't let facts get in the way here!
(bblgoose, Tue 31 Mar 2009, 16:15, closed)