Just Lose It

Just now, in music class, I completely lost it.

We were supposed to have prepared some singing exercises for class, but nobody, NOBODY, had even glanced at the music. So, when he asked us to sing these exercises, things got extremely ugly. It was truly pitiful. And hilarious.

The first person to go was an Asian kid named Wiley. He started about two octaves above his range, and it got higher from there. But things would soon get worse. Observing the train wreck of Wiley, the teacher decided that it would help if two people sang at the same time. So now, instead of one painful melody, we had two, going in and out of tune, clashing, at times in odd, painful disonance.

It was at this point that I started to crack up. People had already been laughing beneath their breath, but were able to keep things under control. I was not so lucky. I started giggling and suddenly I knew I was doomed. I tried to cover my face, to think sad thoughts, to just not laugh, but this only made it worse. At this point I was laughing very hard to the point of crying.

The teacher decided to press on, aware of the hopelesness of the situation, but trying to punish us for our failure to prepare. The next kid to sing was a short guy named Neil, who sings like a Gregorian monk. I was gone. I screamed like a little school girl. It's hard to explain to someone that hasn't been through this, but I think everyone in their life has. I simply had no control over my body. Desperate I grabbed a pencil from my backpack and stabbed myself repeatedly in the hand. This had no effect.

It was now my turn to sing. The teacher pointed to a group of three of us and told us to start. We didn't even get a single note out. I started laughing like a hyena and the two other people in my group started cracking up too.

I got control eventually, but it was too late. The fun had been had. The damage was done.