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The long and forgetful school year

The Sassy Saint told me this hasn’t been the best year for her remembering things.

She’s right. The list of things she’s misplaced or forgotten this year makes me wonder if she’s overbooked and needs a cool-down so she doesn’t burn out.

She called me Friday afternoon, all aflutter. “Momma, I forgot my trumpet at school.”

This posed a problem, as not only was the school closed, but she was supposed to perform with the high school band on Memorial Day.

“Take a breath,” I said. “It’s not the end of the world. I’ll call your band director.”

Which I did. I also e-mailed him, to no avail, since all I had was the school number and address. I could only hope that he was a workaholic like me and checked his work e-mail on his down time. Meanwhile, Sass was texting me for the updates that just weren’t happening. She was distraught at potentially letting her bandmates down and missing the seniors’ last performance.

Finally, I called her – otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten a lick of work done.

“Look, Sass, if he doesn’t call, we’ll go up to the school before the performance Monday and lie in wait.” I am excellent at lying in wait, no matter what the Long Suffering Husband tells you. (He is of the opinion that I suck at stealth, but he is wrong.)

“What if he’s already taken all the drums to his house?”

“There’s only a thousand of them, where would he put them? Trust me, he’ll swing by there on the way to the memorial. We’ll go up early and wait.”

I loathe getting out of bed early, but our Little Professor and the LSH needed to be dropped off at the American Legion that morning to make the rounds with the Boy Scouts. They had been practicing raising and lowering the flag for weeks. Since I had to crawl out of bed at the literal crack of dawn, lurking about the band room was no problem.

We hadn’t been there for more than 10 minutes when, just as predicted, the band director and his assistants showed up.

“See, I told you.”

I made Sass help load up, because the band director had to drive over to the middle school to get her trumpet. Also, because we ambushed them.

“You won’t forget your trumpet again, will you Sass?”

“No, Momma.”

The performance – and the ceremony – was successful. After a morning spent memorializing our veterans, we went home and burned food on sticks over an open flame.

The next morning, getting ready for work, I nearly tripped over Sass’ trumpet, which she had placed next to the door so she wouldn’t forget to take it to school. To get through the door, you had to step over the case.

The LSH asked them whether they had everything they needed and hustled them out the door to go to the bus stop. He dropped them off, then came back for me.

I had to step over her trumpet to get out the front door.

(Wallace-Minger, The Weirton Daily Times community editor, is a Weirton resident and can be contacted at swallace@pafocus.com)

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