One of my favorite memories

I feel lucky in that while I work I can daydream and remember past experiences, and it doesn't get in the way of work. This is one that I thought about today:


It was the final night of a long three week performance of THE WIZARD OF OZ in High School. I played Glinda and Auntie Em. It was probably one of my favorite roles EVER!!! We had finished tearing the set down, we were in the process of putting away some chairs in our high school auditorium. Bradley and Nathan Stokes were standing next to the chair room where the fire alarm was. They were pulling on the bottom of it saying, "HOW DOES THIS THING WORK?" (silly boys) I didn't really know that they were just playing around and I went right over to them and said, "Like this!" and I pulled it.

I didn't mean to but my fingers really grabbed the alarm and pulled it. Oh the sound was AWFUL and loud. It was nearing 12:30 in the morning on a Sunday and Mrs. Grayson was so worried because she thought the school district would have to cut money from her budget so we could pay the firemen who were bound to come. All in all it was a fiasco.

BUT, I loved every moment of it because of all the things I learned about people. Bradley and Nathan (Newman as we called him) and Chris Bergevin (Or Crispy) went to the piano and found out exactly what note the fire alarm was sounding. And as the pitch changed they'd figure out what the difference was. Then they started to harmonize with the fire alarm.

Dallin Farmer who was our sound and light board operator put in a CD of Billy Joel's "We didn't Start the fire" and he turned it up WAY UP. All those who were sweeping and cleaning started dancing on stage to the tune and the fire alarm.

Skyler was doing handstands and acrobatics like crazy on stage too.

And there I stood, by the alarm, waiting to confess my sin to whoever came to shut it off. I kept rehearsing over and over how my fingers really grabbed the alarm even though they didn't mean to.

Everyone was still dancing and cleaning and partying. It was nearing 2am when our school principal came in in his PAJAMAS!!!! I ran over to him and told him how I didn't mean to do it. He looked at me, yawned and shut it off with his special "turn off fire alarm" key. And he left. NO scolding, no cuts from the theatre budget, just a simple turn of his key.

Every time after that event when Principal Thompson and I passed by each other in the hall he would smile and wave and then his face would turn into an awkward expression as if he were asking himself, "Was that real, or was it a dream? Am I dreaming of this student pulling fire alarms?"