Humor in Hindsight

I was told once that the most traumatic and terrible events in our lives are often, in hindsight, the most hilarious. . .

I was young.  I was in eighth grade, a shy little 12 year old, and I took Dance P.E.  You may be thinking to yourself, I bet she just took Dance P.E. to get out of regular P.E.  And you would be absolutely 100% correct.  Yay for you!  Regular P.E. involved running and dodgeball and boys.  Ick, to all of the above.  So I took Dance P.E. and so did all my best girl friends.  It was awesome.

We were split into groups of eight or so girls and had to make up a dance, which we would perform at the end of the semester in front of the whole school (actually just the other P.E. classes during that period. . . but it felt like the whole school) during a very special Dance Performance Assembly.

So naturally I gathered with my friends and we devised the coolest, most wonderful hiphop/jazz/freestyle dance known to man.  And we practiced like crazy.  We held practices at our homes, outside of school.  We were dedicated.  We would look sooo good in front of those other P.E. classes.

When the day of performance came, we brought our matching outfits to school and changed in the locker rooms.  We emerged with stunning swag and confidence.  Oh yeah.  We were awesome.

We waited backstage behind the enormous curtain until it was our turn.  With the curtain closed in front of us, we took our places and struck poses, trying not to giggle.

The curtain opened and the music started simultaneously.  And we danced our hearts out! Our formations were spectacular, our choreography phenomenal.  We were stars.

Then came the cannon section.  We were supposed to do a particular move, starting with those on the left and finishing with those on the right. The first girl on the left, who was meant to start the cannon sequence, suddenly froze.  Her eyes grew wider and wider and her mouth hung open.

And she took off.  Took off! She ran off stage!  Apparently she couldn't remember the choreography.

Interestingly, the unintended "running of the stage" move did in fact set off a cannon sequence.  She ran off, and was shortly joined by two other girls.  Then another three simply stood straight and walked off (they didn't need to run, after all).

So there I am, with Karly — the only two girls left.  We're still dancing, somewhat lamely as we use our peripherals to follow the girls as they saunter away.  We're nearing the end of our dance and I don't really know what to do, so I look over to make eye contact with Karly.  She is still dancing, doing the step-kick step-kick with her legs, but with her right arm she is waving frantically toward the curtain-puller person who is hidden in shadow just offstage.  She's mouthing "close it! close it!" but nothing happens.

At this point I was burning red and I couldn't seem to remember where my feet were, so I simply crouched down and hugged my knees. (Not sure why this was my instinctual reaction.) I looked up and saw Karly had given up and was walking off stage.

I panicked.  I was alone on a stage in front of thousands (maybe, like, 60?) of judgmental, snotty middle schoolers, and I panicked.

I was still crouched down, so I jumped into the air and screamed "TA DAA!" and then RAN.  I booked it so fast off that stage that I crashed into all the girls from my group who were watching from the shadowed sidelines.

I didn't chance a look, but I bet the audience looked a lot like this:

. . .minus the fancy getup.

Hindsight, in hindsight, didn't take very long with this experience.  We found it pretty hilarious as soon as we got out the immediate "Why did you run off stage?? Oh my gosh that was so horrible, I'm going to die!" feeling.  Then we all went out to the field and collapsed in the grass, laughing so hard we couldn't talk anymore.  Lying there, in the grass, tears of laughter squeezing out the corners of my eyes, I found a four-leaf clover.

Then we got in trouble for leaving without telling our teacher.

<3 Mel