Sextet

Back in early cave man days we (we meaning me) went to school. Back then they made us take one “elective” of music. If you could play a musical instrument, based upon your parents spending gobs of money for lessons and an instrument, you could play in the one of the bands. If you were just a freaknoid, then you were left with taking choir.

One day in choir the teacher said that she was going to need 6 singers to form a sextet. The sextet was going to sing for…

She never finished.

Every time she said the word “sextet” there were giggles in the room. Some people whispered the word “sextet” to their neighbor. The teacher went ballistic.

“You are a bunch of immature little brats. Grow up!!!! When you hear the word sextet it doesn’t have anything to do with sex. Sex! Sex! Sex! There you go, there is the word. There, laugh about that! We need to be able to say the word sextet without you bunch of…”

I was hoping she had a gun in her purse and would pull it out and blast away at the front row of kids. She had made all of the “bad kids” sit on the front row where she could keep an eye on them. I was thinking about this as I saw her get so excited about the word “sextet” that spit was spraying the front row. And I was thinking that she could "take out" Harold Beaver who was the play yard bully with the imagined gun in her purse. She waved her arms and her glasses were "cock-eyed".

I "tuned her out" and was thinking about how nice it would be to grow up one day and not be affected by the word “sextet”. I wondered what it would be like to be so mature that when you heard this word it had no affect. You wouldn’t giggle and get all excited and feel like saying to your friend sitting next to you “SEXtet!”. Instead you would take it in stride and feel all calm inside.

Now, of course, I am much older and that age has come to me that I wondered about those many years ago. Unfortunately, I am sure that if I were with my guy friends in a bar and someone mentioned the word “sextet” we would all giggle and look at one another and maybe point to a woman in the bar and say “SEXtet”. None of it would make any sense.

Some of us will never know what it might be like to grow up.

My choir teacher would be so disappointed.