Sunday, February 20, 2005

Embarrassing moment #3

I’m on multi-state tour with the high-school choir at the church I grew up in, where for a whole week we travel to a new city, perform in a church there, spend the night with host families, get back on the bus, travel to a new city, lather, rinse, repeat.

We perform one night at the home church of some of my parents’ oldest friends. After our concert, these friends excitedly inform me that they’ve arranged for me to stay that night with some of their closest friends.

When I get to the host family’s house, it somehow comes up that their son and I had attended the same show-choir camp (yes, show-choir camp) when we were in junior high school. With a big grin on his face, the son asks me if I remember a group that performed “Sister Christian” at the camp talent show.

“I sure do!” I blurt out. “The group was so bad! Everyone around me laughed and booed the whole time they were singing—I mean trying to sing! Even the counselors made fun of them the whole rest of the week at camp.”

It was true. The group SUCKED. They sucked so bad that three years later I still cringed every time I heard “Sister Christian” on the radio.

You can just guess what the son says next to me—with thoroughly, painfully wounded pride—in front of his parents, no less: “That was my band. I was the drummer.”

And I still have 12 whole hours to spend with this kid while his family feeds me dinner, puts me up for the night, makes me breakfast and finally—finally—takes me back to my bus in the morning.

I still cringe every time I hear “Sister Christian.” Except for a different reason.

2 comments:

Rick Aiello said...

OUCH! You sure that your mouth is big enough for the foot sandwich you needed to feed yourself? ;-)

Will said...

Jake I so hope you had taken a really BIG hostess gift.