Why I'm Not In Theater

When I was a chubby third grader, the music teacher at my elementary school tapped me to play Santa in the annual 3rd grade Christmas pageant. Thanks Mrs. Whatever-the-Hell-Your-Name-Was! My self-esteem will be perfectly fine! Nothing says "Please don't notice that I'm the fat kid" like being cast as the fattest guy ever! Awesome.

So blah blah blah I'm in the play. I remember the rehearsals and how I had to come out from the fireplace (which was a real fricking mantle too by the way). I would stand behind the curtain and wait for my cue and then emerge from the mantle/fireplace which was right in front of where I was standing. I had like 5 lines but they were THE MOST IMPORTANT LINES IN THE PLAY! They summed up the whole "Peace on Earth, good will towards man" rigmarole that the faculty was clumsily trying to hammer into our tiny skulls. I had to wait for my cue, come out of the mantle (on my goddamn hands and knees), walk over to one of my elves (who was a girl that I had a HUGE crush on...so that's not awkward), put my hand on her shoulder and say my lines. Not a huge amount of things to remember certainly.

My buddy Stephen was a coo-coo bird in a clock (hey, c'mon..they have to create a role for everyone in the class) and he stood with his head poking out of his clock stage left of the mantle thing (see what I did there? with the fancy theater jargon?). His main role was to announce the scenes kind of like a narrator (it's hard to remember just how involved he was but it isn't really important. Just know that he's there next to the mantle-thing. And when I'm at center stage with my hand on the shoulder of my 3rd grade crush, he is the only other person on the stage with us). He knew that I liked this girl (Jennifer maybe? Ann-Marie? I forget...I'm old now) and would tease me endlessly about the fact that I was being forced to not only talk to her but touch her too.

We had probably 5 rehearsals or so and everything went well enough that it was determined that we could do the show as scheduled in the cafeteria in front of the whole school. This means that not only would it be the other 3rd grade classes but the other classes as well. Oh, and our parents. And brothers and sisters. And pretty much everyone we knew up until that point in our little lives. I'm sure this will go smoothly and not be traumatic at all.

So the day of the play comes and I can't remember just how long the thing was but if memory serves it was frickin' looooooooong. My big moment was at the end of this train wreck so I have to stand behind the heavy, heavy curtain in a scratchy, shitty Santa suit with my buddy Stephen occasionally leaning back from his clock opening and laughing at me. I don't hang out with Stephen anymore. Then all of a sudden my cue is about to come up! Holy crap! Here it comes! I'm gonna have to go out there soon. My mom's out there! And my little sister! And everybody else! And here I am with the MOST IMPORTANT LINES IN THE PLAY! And just before I'm supposed to go through the mantle and crawl like an asshole to my feet and say my amazingly important, theme summarizing, world uniting lines Mrs. Whatever-the-Hell-Her-Name-Was comes back behind the curtain with me and stuffs a frickin' pillow under my costume to make me look fatter! Oh fantastic. This wasn't in the rehearsals.

Here's the thing. She put the pillow in sideways so that it was wider than it was big. Wider than, say, the opening to the mantle for instance. Can you see it coming? I didn't. So, pillow gets stuffed with no quality control at all, and I force my way through the opening in the curtain and emerge from the fireplace right on goddamn cue. I'm a fucking professional, people. I struggle to my feet (which was harder to do with that big ol' pillow in the way) and march over to my true love to deliver my mind blowing lines. That's when I notice her expression. She looked terrified. I heard a weird noise and then Stephen said "Maaaark! Look oooooooouuuuut!" That can't be a good sign can it?

I turn just in time to have the frickin' wooden mantle slam down on my right foot. Then all the decorations which were all in some way attached to the mantle (don't do that by the way...) came crashing down one by one. Giant candles down. Giant wreaths down. Coo-coo clock thing down. All stringers and/or garland down. Christmas tree down. Every-fucking-thing down. Plus, everyone else on the stage bailed. People on the side of the stage bailed. Except me. I stood my ground partly because of the giant wooden thing on my foot and partly because the big pillow made a quick escape kind of difficult. Then the laughing started. It was my Carrie moment minus having the ability to make them all pay.

So I'm standing in the middle of the stage all by myself with all of Lincoln Elementary (and their parents) laughing at me. Can you relate? No, you cannot fucking relate. The janitor dude comes out and lifts the mantle off my foot (thanks Mister) and Mrs. Whatever-the-Hell-Her-Name-Was says to me "Say your lines!". WHAAAAAAT?! Are you mad? I'm 8 years old and I want to murder everyone here starting with you and you want me to say these lines about peace and love now? NOW?! She pushes the girl out to meet me on the stage and I do just that. I finish the show. The show must go on and goddamn it it did. All the decorations were on the ground, the janitor with his giant ring of keys is now holding the mantle in place (hmmm...maybe they should have anchored that somehow), and my right foot is swelling up but I finished that frickin' play.

All I can say is thank jeebus himself that no one had a video camera or 8mm thing running at the time. I don't remember much of what happened after that.