2004-05: (Fifth Grade Strings) This first year of his musical adventure included one catastrophe and one close call. Every February, the Okemos Music Patrons host a spaghetti dinner fundraiser during which the school district's different orchestras perform in the school hallways and cafeteria as diners browse artwork displayed in the halls or enjoy the dinner. While on his way into the school, Sylvain tripped and fell on top of his bass, breaking its bridge. Since this event is hosted at the high school, there was not a 1/8 size bass for him to play, so he missed this performance.
During the spring concert that year, his orchestra performed the "Pink Panther" theme song while his teacher wandered onto the stage dressed in a Pink Panther costume. Yes, it's weird, and I don't really know why that particular song was chosen. But, there I was, sitting helplessly in the audience as said teacher sashayed onto the stage tail in hand. While swinging the costume's tail, she quickly turned and knocked Sylvain's bass out of his hands. Gasping, I clutched my chest in wide-eyed terror as I waited for the bass to clatter onto the stage floor. Sylvain managed to grab it with lightening-quick speed; and as I let out my the air blocked in my chest, I heard others around me do the same. I looked over to my friend Sue who was sitting next to me and we both couldn't believe what we had just seen. And, no, his teacher did not even notice.
2009: (Freshman Orchestra) So, flash-forward to Wednesday evening. We arrived at the school early for Sylvain's winter concert. The kids were asked to be there in advance so that yearbook pictures could be taken. While that was occurring in the auditorium, I hung out in the hallway with the other parents and talked. It seemed like it had been a long time since I had seen some of the other parents, since I am no longer as active of a volunteer as I had been. We were finally allowed to come into the auditorium 15 minutes before the concert was to begin. I took my seat and saved one for Chuck. Thinking that it was odd that he wasn't at the school yet, I checked my phone to see if he called (since my phone had long-since been turned to "silent") and saw that there were 3 missed calls.
All were from Sylvain. Phoning him back, he quickly answered and said frantically, "Mom, where are you? " I explained that we were just let into the aud, he replied, "I need you out in the hallway. Hurry."
I found him nonchalantly leaning agains the wall with both hands firmly in his pockets. While his body-language attempted to say "Mr. Cool Cucumber here", his face told a completely different story.
Walking up to him, "What's wrong?" I asked confused as to what the problem could possibly be. "Look," he urgently mumbled and gestured downwards. As he did so, he slighly relaxed his hands and showed me that his pants had come completely apart. "I went to the bathroom and as I was walking out, I hear a rip. PLEASE get me out of here!" he continued.
Mouth agape, it took me a half-second to realize what had happened and to register the pleading look in his eyes. I quickly put my arm around him and ushered him out of the door. Thankfully, I had put my keys in my pants pocket, so we rushed to the car to head home to quickly change his pants. While on the way, he kept repeating, "I don't think that anyone saw me. I don't think that anyone saw me." He then phoned a friend who was in orchestra and asked him to place his bass on stage for him. "Don't worry about where I'm at. Please just do it."
We were back at the school in 20 minutes flat. I dropped him off by the door and left to park the car because by then I had lost my primo parking spot. When I returned to the auditorium, I stood in the back with the late-arriving parents and was able to catch the end of the Freshman Orchestra's last song. Once it was over, I quickly returned to my seat and waved the inquiring look of my friend Karthy with whom I was originally sitting with. Looking on stage for Sylvain, I saw him walking off stage with his bass and along with the other bass players. During the set change, I leaned over to Karthy and told her what had happened. Having two sons, she fully understood and just looked over at me as we both started to laugh at the whole ridiculous situation. I asked her how bad Sylvain looked as he scrambled onto the stage and she said she didn't even notice. And that's with us being seated in the 3rd row on stage right (where the basses usually are placed).
When we finally returned home after the concert, I inspected the pants to see what had happened. The seam came apart from the zipper all the way to the waistband in back. Lucky for Sylvain, his tuxedo jacket covered his rear enough so that he could focus his concern with keeping the front of his pants together. No amount of safety pins were going to help him. Sure, I could have taken the time to search out his teacher, but was afraid of potentially exposing his situation to a crowd of people.
Sylvain also clued me in that he managed to sneak on stage as the Concert Orchestra (sophomores) were bringing out their instruments, so he ended up not even being able to play a single note!
Yes, folks, Sylvain was literally standing in his high school hallway, minutes away from performing in front of a room full of classmates and parents in pants that fully exposed his boxers. For all intents and purposes, his pants had disintegrated into a pair of polyester chaps within a matter of seconds. Isn't this at some point every person's nightmare? And what would you have done?
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