Oh dang........

You know those moments when time seems to slow down because something has just gone horribly wrong but there’s nothing you can do about it? I had one of those moments tonight at the basketball game as I watched my music go sailing over the edge of the balcony into the crowd below. We were playing in the Energy Solutions arena in Salt Lake, and the pep band was up in one corner at the edge of the balcony. It was very cramped, and so we had to make do with little flimsy fold-up stands that were highly unstable. During the game Brother Mac was sending the pep band out one by one to go get food. My turn came, and I moved my stand to one side so I could scramble out over the seats. My treacherous stand didn’t take kindly to being moved. I guess I didn’t set it down carefully enough, because it tipped over, measured its full length across the row in front of me, and launched my music into thin air. All I could think of was, “I hope no one is sitting there when it lands.” After a few stunned seconds I looked around and realized that I had to go retrieve my folder--actually, Mark had to point that out to me because I was pretty well shocked. I climbed out and went hunting for my wayward music, crimson up to my hairline from embarrassment and a really bad case of the giggles, but I didn’t know my way around the arena so a security man brought it back to the band before I even found the right portal to the lower level. I still don’t know if it hit anyone on the way down.