Funny Feet

From my seat in the balcony, I could just barely see my mom standing on the risers on the floor below.  To get a good view, I had to sit up perfectly straight, tilt my head to the left and peek through the two rows of heads in front of me.  But that was okay because we were there for the music.

My sister and I had arrived a bit early to the performance so that my mom could warm-up with the rest of the choir.  When we found at our seats, we were surprised to see a few friends from school in the same row.  The four of us sat quietly as the musicians and choir members ran through a few pieces of Handel's Messiah.  Once or twice I could see my mom peering up to the balcony where we were sitting, keeping a far-away eye on us.  Knowing that we were still under our mother's watch was the encouragement we needed to behave well.  That and the other three hundred white-haired people in the audience.

As the opening number began, we were drawn into the music and the voices.  This was familiar music for us and so we enjoyed following along and listening for the parts that we really liked, while happily tapping our feet.  As the concert progressed, of course, we got a little wiggly.  Try as we might, it's a hard thing for middle school-aged kids to keep still that long.  I'm quite certain that was the main reason for the eminent un-concert-like behavior that was soon to come.  That and the warning my mother had given us previously:  watch out for the male soloist's feet.

As we sat together in our row, I heard a few muffled titters from the friends a few seats away.  The guilty little laughs that tend to sneak out when you least want them to.  Curiosity got the best of me.  I leaned forward in my seat to see one friend with her foot upon the back of the seat in front of her.  The woman in that seat had long curly hair spilling over the back of the seat and this friend had her flip-flopped foot under the hair.  She was wiggling her toes and smiling into her hand.  That was actually bad enough to get the rest of us grinning and smothering a few giggles.  And then it got a tad bit worse.  The woman behind the flip-flopped friend leaned forward in her seat and in a voice loud enough for us all to hear declared, "You'll get your toes tangled up."  She shook her head in that tsk, tsk way which only added fuel to our juvenile laughter.

One peek down at my mother in the choir was enough for my sister and I to pull ourselves together and re-focus on the music.  My mother claimed later that she couldn't see us, but at the time I was quite certain that my mom's x-ray vision could also see long distances quite clearly!

As I read through the program, I realized that there was only a few more concert pieces left.  We were almost done with having to be so very good and quiet.  Unfortunately, it was also at this moment that I recognized the soloist for the next piece.  It was the guy with the mysterious feet.

I sat up straight in my chair and peered over the heads in front of me as the gentleman made his way to the platform.  The music began and within moments his amazing voice filled the church.  He seemed to sing from deep down, past his diaphragm ... all the way down to his lumberjack shoes.

Yes.  The final soloist stood there in his black tux and belted out the Hallelujah Chorus while standing in brown construction boots with red laces.  It was too much.

As the song reached it's final crescendo, I sat hunched over in my seat shaking with laughter and trying (almost) successfully to stifle the hysteria that was fighting for escape.  I've never been so glad for the end of a performance so that I could let loose some of my giggles during the ovation and then jump to my own two little feet and get some fresh air!

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Prompt #5:  Write about a time you laughed at an inappropriate time.