Regret

Or, a story of my formerly being a band geek.

A long time ago, way back in high school, I did something kinda mean. It wasn't meant to be mean, it just turned out that way. Our high school band, as I reckon many are, had too many of the more popular instruments, and not very many of the less popular ones. I played the trombone, which is nowhere near as cool as you might be thinking. If you were thinking that.

We had too many flutes, and too many clarinets. As a result, some of the lesser talents were strongly encouraged to switch to other less popular instruments. One poor girl had to take up the french horn. She was the only french horn player we had. For some reason, the band director chose an arrangement where the french horn played a prominent part. He seemed to do that occasionally, that is, feature an instrument that we as a band were not strong in talent or numbers. Kinda weird.

Anyway, we had a very good band, despite having lopsided instrument ratios. So, when the french horn player was featured in a very good band playing an important part, a part she was just not able to handle, I was a little upset. During a concert, as she stumbled through her part, I whispered to the guy next to me, "Man she sucks!"

I must have been too loud; she heard me. The sequence of events that followed stands out in my mind.

The horn made a sound not unlike it would make if she had tried to swallow it, and was choking on it. (It was a pretty funny sound). I remember the band director looking up at her trying to see what was going on. She recovered after a few seconds, and played the rest of the part in humiliation. The guy next to me was snickering, trying not to be seen by the band director, with a look on his face that said, "that was really funny, but you are a jerk man."

She quit the band after that year, probably in part due to my careless cruelty. I had made up my mind that I should apologize to her. I never got the opportunity, and if I had, I doubt I would have had the guts to do it, to tell the truth.

It is not that big a deal in the scheme of life, she may not even remember it now. It is not like it is some obsession of mine, every once in a great while I think about it. I've never told anyone about it. Just one of those times were I was less of a person than I would like to have been.

I don't even remember her name.