I'm fired?

Get on your boots! These are my favorite boots. They are ultra-seventies and remind me of the ones Ms. Fields wore with seemingly just a trench coat in Quantum of Solace.

I have another story today (I don't think I've mentioned, but I'm attempting to post a blog entry every day of April. It's Maureen Johnson's fault. Please help me think of things to blog about, because I will eventually run out of embarrassing stories).

Once upon a time, I was in a marching band (several times, actually). This marching band marched in rain or snow, in all manner of foul weather, because not only did we enjoy what we were doing, but for some reason other people did too and only crappy people let others down on purpose.

One day, the marching band was playing at the yearly homecoming game (RAH!). This particular homecoming was so completely rainy that the athletic department decided the marching band would do too much damage to the football field during the halftime show that we had to stand on the track around the field to play our show.¹ But the show went on. Because we were cool like that. Also total geeks.

We played the entire game and went back to our dorm rooms or, for people who were cooler, apartments. Of course, since it had been pouring during all the playing, there was not only approximately one standard-size Nalgene of water in my saxophone bell, but my music was wet almost to the point of disintegration.

Now, I have mentioned before that I am a naturally curious person. We have already discussed the fact that this curiosity often leads me to do stupid things. This especially rainy day was no exception.

On previous occasions when the marching band had played in the rain, my good friend Slugger² mentioned putting his damp marching band music in the microwave to dry it out. Being an innocent and ridiculously naive person, I believed this was a reasonable option.

Of course, my chance to try this trick for myself happened that fateful homecoming.

I got back to my dorm room, and after changing out of my soaking wet uniform I decided to try Slugger's microwave trick.³ I very carefully took my disintegrating music from my folder and put it on a fishy-dishy towel (it was a dish towel with fish on it. Fishy-dishy was too good not to use) in our very small microwave. I put the timer on one minute.⁴

I festooned my bed's loft with my wet marching band uniform while the microwave dried my music. This was brilliant! What a great idea Slugger had! After about thirty seconds I glanced back at the microwave, which seemed fine. Full of smoke, everything fine. I continued hanging my marching band uniform, throwing the pants by the window so they'd catch the breeze and spread the pleasant wet-wool odor as far as poss-

Wait, smoke?!

My marching band music was on fire in the microwave. I believe I screamed in an embarrassingly girly manner (not that I'm not a girl, but I don't like screaming like one just because some marching band music is on fire in the microwave).

"Agh!" I said, dashing to the microwave. I pulled the music and the fishy-dishy towel out of the microwave. "AGH!" I said again, for emphasis.

My room was rapidly filling with smoke. This was not good, as all dorm rooms at my university were equipped with smoke detectors and sprinklers for, presumably, this very situation. "AAAAGGGHHHH!!" I said.

Rather than standing there and screaming (which was not helping as much as it should have, honestly), I grabbed my shower towel and started fanning the smoke out the window. I should emphasize that at this point, my dorm room was so full of smoke that I could not see the window toward which I was fanning the smoke, praying that I did not set off the fire alarm.

For the next four hours, everyone walking in our hallway commented on the fact that some unfortunate student in our cube (our dorms were arranged in cubes instead of wings) had burned her Ramen Noodles. Bummer.

Here is a final thing to note: Fire alarms in dorm rooms do not work very well. Do not start a real, actual fire in a dorm room because your fire alarm will probably not go off and people will be very angry at you for burning your Ramen Noodles and stinking up the entire floor, when in actuality you've just burned your fishy-dishy towel and your miniature copy of "On Wisconsin."

Also? Don't believe people named Slugger.

¹ Don't ask me how the marching band could possibly do more damage to a wet football field than, say, a football team, but this is the way college athletic departments think. SPORTS GOOD. ARTS... SORT OF OKAY.

² Slugger is not his actual name. Awww, slugger! In this same vein, my band name of Bambi is not my actual name. For about a year I was known throughout the marching band as Bambi the G-rated stripper. I showed my bare ankles and nothing more - scandal. This is fairly accurate. I'll be the first to admit I'm a prude and proud.

³ Have you ever roomed with a band geek who has to hang her wet wool uniform all over the room to dry? I had very tolerant roommates, because wet wool smells like poop and unwashed Robert Pattinson.

⁴ I'm beginning to think that a lot of my problems in life have to do with setting the microwave timer for way too long.