I didn't put a meme in this chapter, instead I embedded a YouTube video of a guy playing heavy metal on a clarinet. It seemed important.
If you like this video, the guy's name is Caleb Canatheviphth, and that's also his channel name. Just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Now, storytime!
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It all started with Norm the guiro. For those of you who have never seen a guiro, it's a wooden percussion instrument that makes a scraping sound when played correctly. Here's a picture.
Ours is basically the same, except it has three holes in the middle, arranged like a triangle, so it sort of looks like a face. Our band teacher, Mr. Cash, capitalized on this by giving it a crazy orange wig and a name, Norm. You know, the sane thing to do. For a while, he was something straight out of a horror movie, one of those things that moves, but you never actually catch it moving. It didn't really serve a purpose, though, until the clarinet section thought of one.
First of all, most of our clarinets consist of this really tight-knit group of friends, so when one of them is absent, they look for something, anything, to fill the seat.
Usually this consists of a pile of binders, lunchboxes, and clarinet cases with Norm the guiro sitting on top. Yes, they do that every time that one of them isn't there. It gets normal after a while.
That's not even the best part, though. The best part is Mr. Cash's reaction to all of this. After about 20 minutes of class, he'll look over and see Norm. He'll calmly say, "Is that Amanda/Caroline/Gabby?" The clarinets will giggle a little, then nod. Then Mr. Cash will go back to teaching like nothing ever happened. It's the little things that make you love band.