Tales From The Band Room

Dairy Queen

Pictured: why I haven't uploaded in so long.

I'm currently sitting in a car 1 1/2 hours into a trip to Bristol, Virginia on the way to a football game. More on that if Virginia Tech's band ends up doing anything noteworthy. (Spoiler: they didn't.)

While I'm sitting here, I'm finishing off the last of a cherry lemonade from Dairy Queen, which reminds me of a story. And if you've done band at my school in the last four years, you know the one. It all started with my class' very first concert.

It must have been a lot more confusing at the time, because it took us forever to understand the schedule. Finally, Mr. Cash explained it in the clearest terms he could.

"You come in, we warm up, we play, we're done, you go to Dairy Queen or whatever."

Little did he know at the time how much of an effect this would have on our school's band program for the rest of time.

After the concert was over, our local Dairy Queen was flooded with little sixth-graders fresh from playing a concert.

Of course, this is band, so we had a quick laugh about it and then moved on with our lives, with this occurrence being a one-time thing that never happened again.

Just kidding. This is band. Of course not.

It spread like wildfire throughout the entire band program. Every concert from then on, so many band kids come to Dairy Queen that somebody has to call ahead to warn them.

So now that you know why, picture this: a small-town Dairy Queen, designed to hold fifty people, max, and staffed by probably about six, filled to the brink with at least 75 band kids and their parents. All the kids are in dressy concert black, with hair and makeup done (where applicable), and they're still riding the adrenaline rush from a good concert. And then they give us ice cream.

Saying that we're a little excited is like saying that the band drinks a little water during drill week.

All the grades clump together, but my grade takes the cake. The joint has a circular corner booth that we fill up to the brim. We have at least seven people sitting in the booth, with two chairs on the open side, and then at least five people sitting on top of the booth. For a time when we're all holding ice cream in dress clothes, we've had surprisingly few disasters. And then we take selfies. (I don't have any to upload, but if anybody reading does, let me know.)

Mr. Cash has since stopped making statements encouraging us to visit places and refuses to come to Dairy Queen on a concert night.

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Thanks for reading and thanks for getting me over the 100 reads mark! As I'm writing this, I'm sitting at 124, so I'm a little late, but thanks. Until next time, remember to vote for this chapter and share it with your friends who can totally relate! I hope to upload a chapter again soon, so keep an eye on your feeds!