not-so-pitch-perfect

Upon my return from my mission in Nauvoo in August, a friend and I decided on a new life motto: For the Adventure, for the Story. Ben and I agreed that if we were ever in a position to do something maybe a little out of the norm, we would seize the opportunity to have an adventure, or at least have an interesting story out of it.

Fast forward about a month. I was sitting on a full plane, and it had just been announced that we will have to wait on the landing strip for another hour until we get the clear to take off.  You can imagine everyone’s joy in hearing that news.

I hadn’t eaten all day, and my stomach was audibly rumbling. Trying to be as positive as possible to the steward, I asked for a cookie, or a cracker, or some pretzels, whatever they had. I could tell the man was frustrated, not everyone was trying as consciously as I to be kind. (The poor guy, it wasn’t his fault the plane was delayed. He was just the only person nearby on which the passengers could direct their anger). He told me he’d get me a cookie.

20 minutes later, I flagged him down—cheerfully and politely of course—and asked again, “I’m really sorry. I’m not upset, I’m just a little bit starving. Could you grab that cookie for me?”

“Sure”

Then he disappeared again.

“He’s probably not coming back with a cookie, is he?” I asked the nice couple sitting next to me.

“Nope” We all chuckled despairingly.

“So” I began, as is my custom on airplanes, “Are you going home, leaving home, or neither?”

We got to chatting. They asked me about my performance mission, and about my new singing group, and somehow my random vision of a musical flash mob on an airplane came up. 

The older woman said, “All those musically things, you must be great! OOO! Honey! You’ve gotta sing for us! For the plane!”

I laughed, “You’re too sweet. I’m not really.” She was cute.

But then I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

Big bucket list check-off… when would I ever have a captive audience wherein anybreak from staring at the back of an unmoving seat would be welcome? The more I pushed the thought away the more it stood festering, growing until I couldn’t let it go. It’d be a great story, Ben.

I got up, the music to my vocal jazz group's arrangement of  “In My Life” by the Beatles in my hand. A song we had just barely started learning. (How silly would it have been for me to sing a song I actually knew? no. that would be ridiculous.)

“Hey everyone…” I looked back at the row I just crawled out of as they gave me two big smiles and thumbs ups, “I…uh… I have to have this song memorized before tomorrow for this group I’m in…” Every single eye was glued on this bizarre behavior of a girl standing in the isle, “Since we’ve all got nothing better to do, I was wondering if I could sing it for you?”

Immediately, what seemed like hundreds of phones were pointed in my direction, video recording mode on. I got a few encouraging nods and so I took a deep breath. For the story.

I lifted the music while the sheet had a seizure because my hands were shaking so much.

I started singing. About half way through the first verse, I realized this had been a very bad idea. What was coming from my mouth sounded a little off. That is because I learned the alto part of a jazz arrangement. So what I was singing didn’t even remotely sound like the original Beatles tune.

But it was too late. I couldn’t stop now. I just prayed that the sound was getting lost in the rafters of the plane. But I definitely saw some confused looks that said, “I think I’ve heard these lyrics before… but that sounds like a bunch of random notes”

When I finished the botched up rendition, there was polite but pitiful round of applause. I heard one “whoop!” then everyone turned back to his or her various devices. Probably sending the video to a friend with the caption: “look at this crazy lady on my plane!”

The darling couple welcomed me back to our row and said, "Oh you're so brave!"

Immediately after I sat down, the steward came rushing up the isle, handed me a cookie and with both awe and sympathy said, "You earned this."