A Rock and a Hard Place

So....

Friday our football team had a home game. I didn't take the pep band. The game was off our radar, because it was the first of the playoffs... it wasn't on the master schedule, so I didn't know about it until very late. The thing you have to understand is that for a long time we had an underachieving football team. We never went to playoffs. Well, this year we have a new coach. He's been winning. We're in playoffs. I didn't go to the first game... that was bad.

Strangely enough, it wasn't Principal Palpatine who e-mailed me about the issue (although she was cc'd.) It was the assistant principal... who may be acting under Palpatine's directive, or who just shares the same "Band is the slave of the athletics department" opinion. Whatever.

This was one of those moments where I (wisely) waited at least a good hour before I wrote a reply. I'm already on Palpatine's shit list... I need to stay under her radar as much as possible.

So now, as a show of good faith, I have to take a group to the next game, which is next Friday. And for those of you not in the know (ie. not living in the USA) most of next week is a holiday. That means I'm going to be trying to get kids to show up to a school event on a day they're not even supposed to be thinking about school. I know, I know.... who in their right mind would shedule a game on a holiday? This is American football, folks. It's practically a religion. A football game trumps a holiday like a royal flush.

In hindsight, I should have taken a band to last Friday's game... I would have had way more leverage to skip the coming holiday game. Now I have to put double the effort into making this coming friday's game work.

I've already confirmed that my only two competent drummers will be out-of-town... which means I have to hire a ringer (Already arranged.) And God knows how many more will skip out (and to be honest... I don't blame them).

What Assistant Principal didn't mention was whether or not it is a home game. I replied to his e-mail with a request that if it were an away game, that we recieve accomodations for transportation. I also asked if they could help cover the cost of the ringer on drum set.

Funny thing... when I hit "send" the e-mail was immediately returned with a "Out-Of-Office" reply. It seems Assistant Principal will not be at school until December 1st. Traveling for the holidays I suppose? Lucky him.