For some odd reason I was reminded of a prank my classmates and I played on our 7th grade orchestra sub.  We were pretty good at what we did and the teacher had been excited about a recent performance we did at a local mall.

So we heard the teacher would be out one day and a sub would take his place. Someone had the brilliant idea (hehehe) to have all of us switch seats. Not just switch seats but instruments as well. The instruments stayed in place but we swapped seats.

Some chickens decided not to switch but that was ok because we had enough to do damage.

And damage we did. The sub came in all smiles and we opened up the music books.

Tap tap tap went the sub’s baton on the music stand and we were off.

“Off” being the key word here.

We honestly tried our best; the music in front of us was well-rehearsed over weeks of effort and practice.

But those of us who switched seats and instruments had zero experience with these. For instance I was a French horn player. Nothing in that prepared me for the tenor saxophone in my hands. Likewise the drummer on the tuba was equally lost. I can’t recall the rest but we were all horrid. Those who chose not to switch carried the tune best as they could but it wasn’t enough.

To the sub’s credit, he stayed the entire period. Screeches and flat notes and missed beats from whoever was on drums filled the room.

Our regular teacher came back the next day and was a little quiet, which was unlike him. Someone finally spilled the beans about our prank, and the teacher’s face completely changed as he started chuckling. He told us the sub was worried about the progress our class was making.

Imagine handing off a promising set of people to someone with the knowledge that you’d be proud of the work you’d done with them, only to be told they ain’t as great as you thought they were.

That was a great class and a great teacher.  Totally worth the mile daily walk to school and back lugging that borrowed French horn in that black case around.