Saturday, May 21, 2011

If Train leaves the Zamboni door at 25 mph...

God forbid any of the Pros get on the Lighting channel on headset. When "Cue Train Wreck" is fast followed by "Choo Choo!!" they might get a reassurance of how awful things are.

Last night went okay at first. I arrived early, bearing glitter and a worklight for the booth, since they seemed to be operating with a stupid flashlight which is dumb. I chatted with the LD/ME, who revealed to me some rather ugly secrets about how the lighting almost doesn't happen at all for this place. Who doesn't return 12 phone calls about critical matters like patterns and color? Hm.

At any rate, I took another spot position to avoid Big Bertha. Dad and the In Laws arrived, Dad reporting that there was no one supervising the Boys Dressing Room and that he would tie Stitch's skates at Intermission. Okay, dumb but not unusual.

Show starts, we're doing okay. Spot 3 goes out and there's a moment of panic, but the guy just tripped over the power cord and unplugged it. No sweat. Since I'm so used to being on #3, I miss a cue for #4 where I now am, but then the LD flubs a call and so I have to do two skaters back to back. As I said over headset, "Holla!" Spot #4 is incredibly dim, I can't even see where I am when I cross the ice, so I'm coming in early tonight and cleaning the lenses. Might help, couldn't hurt. The LD says that they QC their gear better, "I promise..."
"Hey, this thing's older than both of us combined, it's okay." If cleaning doesn't work, I'll just grab the family Maglite and use that.

It's all looking good and then Act II starts. For some reason, Lidwina left the rink at Act II. Skaters are coming out of odd places, kids are falling more than usual, there's more drama in the booth (again, which I can hear some of) and everything feels off. You can tell when a show is off, you can feel it.

The Boys go on and immediately one of them takes a hard dive. He's hurt, holding his face and crying. Mysteria is screaming in the booth, it's her kid. A Coach comes to save him, taking him off the ice, and Stitch and Other Boy are left in a daze.
"Go, Stitch," I will him to move. "Pick it up. Go. It doesn't matter. Just go. No one knows the program anyway, just go."
Stitch takes the football off the ice and moves. The other boy follows. They pick up the program, and I am so proud. He's not happy, but he and the other boy keep going. Stitch hams for the crowd and they cheer. The Boys finish, and their applause was the loudest of any group number.
I know Stitch isn't happy, but I know Dad is and I am. He did great.

Then the Diesel came out of the Far End and the Steam barreled out the Zam door for curtain call. The spots preset for the groups as they come out of the doors, and suddenly no one is where they were last night. Kids are coming from other doors, opposite doors, trap doors, the ceiling, and possibly someone's posterior and the LD almost threw off his headset in confusion. "You know what, just light who you can," he finally said.

Calls were missed, and one of the was The Boys. They were standing by the door, alone, no pro or coach in sight, and their names were called. Okay, these are 6 and 7 year old boys, you need to be speaking directly at them to have their attention. They will not hear someone say, "Pre-Alpha through Pre-Freestyle Boys" over a loudspeaker, to say nothing of knowing that this applies to them. But that got said, and the boys milled around. I threw the spot on them and motioned for Stitch to "MOVE!"
They moved. I was mad but I put that aside for the moment. If anyone got mad for me turning the spot on them at the wrong moment, I could counter with "Where the hell was the coach?"

The show ended. One down. I got off headset and went to the dressing room. Dad was taking Stitch's skates off and talking about the incident. "You did just what you were supposed to do," he was saying.
Stitch was frowning.
"Did you hear that applause?" I was looking on the bright side. "They loved you!"
"Yeah," Stitch had to agree at that.
"Hey," I put his bunny soakers on his skates. "Shit happens. Welcome to theatre. You did perfectly. You covered the accident and the show went on." I didn't realize that the Fallen Kid and his Dad were right next to me as it became clear that I swear in front of my kid, not until it was too late. Oh well. Truth, people. Truth.

We go out for Ice Cream, but Stitch is exhausted. His mood picks up, and he's joking with me as we're pulling into the parking lot at home. I have one more night on spot and then I can watch. Maybe by then the boys will get a solid number in. If not, July is coming. Mother in Law and I are going to the fabric store today to look at trims and she's going to help me start on the jacket today.

At least at a comp, there's only one train.

1 comment:

  1. It's all good. I accidentally told the story of my son's roommate who uses internet chat rooms to pick up casual sex. She then claimed it didn't matter, because, and I quote, "he's only 9, he doesn't know what sex is."

    I SWEAR, I had not given her the Dewar's.

    ReplyDelete