Other People's Stories: Part I

I'm braindead for blog fodder today, so I'm going to talk about other people. A friend recently lamented about her ex-husband: "He would never gossip, and I respected that about him....But God! Sometimes you just want to gossip about people, y'know?"

That's so funny. I'm not going to gossip about people today, but that's a funny (short) story, and I just wanted to share it with you.

I've always maintained that some of my best stories are other people's stories. I have hilarious friends with hilarious stories, and I find myself prompting them "Oh, tell me that story again!"

For instance, my friend Diane. We met in 1982, when I began working with her in a printing factory. She didn't actually like me at first (I know!), but being the good person she is, stepped up and saved me during an altercation with the company nutjob. We've been best friends ever since, and I could write volumes about our adventures together. Volumes!

Diane works at a local Performing Arts Center. Her official title is something like "usher" which sounds cooshy, but it is not. It's hard, physical labor that entails setting up stages and bleachers and risers, and tearing them down again, sweeping, mopping, PR, greeting, entertaining, and assisting guests.

The perks are pretty cool, though: Once, while she was hauling out garbage with one hand, Yo Yo Ma crossed the hall to shake the other. On another evening, while she sat on the dock taking her break, k.d. lang hurdled her like a gazelle, trying to escape an onslaught of rushing fans. Di just yelled after her, "Bye, k.d.!"

Anyway, The Great Hall at Krannert holds nearly 4,000 people. Though Di is a friendly sort, getting up on stage in front of that many people is generally an offer she would turn down. She was forced, however, to do just that, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra* was interrupted by a bat.

Bats and The Boston Symphony Orchestra don't go together. Apparently the crowed ooh'd and ahh'd with every swoop of the confined bat, and the concert was brought to a halt. Diane was called in to remedy the situation.

Called right up on stage.

Standing there.

With all of the musicians.

And all of the instruments.

In front of 40,000 people.

And a big ol' giant butterfly net in her hands.

Catch that bat! Yes! She was supposed to catch that bat with that net, while 400,000 people watched! The bat would swoop down, and the crowd would warn her, and she'd swing the net.

Overhead lights blinded her, and she took to listening to the audience's cue, and swinging that net when voices rose. No bat in the basket, she'd wait again, until there was a crescendo in the crowd noise, and SWOOP again. No bat, she couldn't catch the bat.

Well, that's kind of where the story wraps up. I know that you were waiting for her to trip and take out the percussion section, which would have made a great story, but that's not how it happened at all. In the end, one of the audience members whapped the bat with a BSO program that he'd rolled up to use as a weapon. Di and her coworkers were able to retrieve the poor stunned dear, and set it free.

That's the whole story. No moral, no point, I just laugh to think of Diane up there, flailing around on stage in front of 4,000,000 people, trying to catch a bat with a butterfly net.

I love that story so much that YOU could tell it to me, and I'd laugh.

Well, since we just heard it, why don't you tell me a crazy story about YOUR friend?

Blog it, and I'll link you up here, if you don't want to leave it in the comments.

*Don't quote me on this; I'm pretty sure it was BSO night, though it could have been a different symphony altogether. Whoever it was, they were famous, and it was a packed house.