Costume Drama

There comes this point--you know the one, where you're a week shy of your period, and you're worried about your future, and you had to spend an hour at an Open House in which no one cared if you were there or not, then go to a two-hour dress rehearsal--yeah, that point. And then someone tells you, "Here, gimme $2.50 for the ugliest scarf ever created, which completely clashes with the ugliest choir dress ever created, which you must wear for tomorrow night's concert."

You've seen on Yahoo that the temperature is supposed to be in the mid-80s tomorrow. You know that wearing two layers of black polyester in an un-air-conditioned church almost completely made up of windows (and the stage is west-facing, natch) is going to be hellish enough. Now someone is telling you to wear the scarf.

No.

I love Chorale. I really, really love Chorale. I love the music. I love the people. I tolerate the dresses because I love so much about what we do. But I am tired, I am cranky, I don't have any cash on me because I just don't carry cash anymore since the invention of the debit card. I have been busy all damned day, I'm tired, I'm missing Grey's Anatomy, and that scarf is brown, turquoise and peach. It is ugly. And I am not wearing that thing with a black dress.

So, no.

I'm not out to create drama. Honestly, I am not. But there comes this point, when they spring this on you at 9:00 on a Thursday night, when you're a week away from your period, tired from working all day, a two-mile run, Open House and two hours of singing. That point is just the limit. I did not take a scarf. I will not pay for a scarf. And if they want me to wear it this weekend, they are going to have to tie me down and choke me with it first. And then they're out a soloist.

Then again, we may be out an entire soprano and alto section, with ladies falling victim to heat stroke and fashion don't-ism.

I don't know why I'm so bent-out-of-shape about this. Maybe it's because it's so last-minute, and the decision was made for 70-something women by three people who felt they and only they know what is best for outfitting this choir. And I know, if I discreetly try to get up on stage without the scarf, more than one person will have a conniption fit because HOW WILL IT LOOK?! Oh. My. God. How AWFUL it will look if someone is not wearing that scarf. Meanwhile, these are the people who bury their heads in their music, which, if you ask me, looks even worse.

But what do I know?