A Dash of Confidence

During the twilight of my tenure at New Braunfels Middle School, I was able to have two electives, one of which wasn’t forcibly a physical educational requirement. For my last semester of public school, I chose Journalism, and Theater as my personal two. The journalism class is a story for another day, but for now I will spin you the tale of my small piece of glory. Most of the actual class is a blur, to which the gooey secrets may later be remembered by me, but I will start my theater stories, with my last one.

The final assignment of the class was to put on a production, which the instructor would choose. Our teacher chose this rather namby-pamby fairytale court, which seemed to be written by a flounder with a case of severe brain trauma. The characters were all pretty cut and dry, the judge, the lawyer, the three little pigs, and the rather non-beefy bailiff. After reading the play, I daintily threw my hands up in the air, and bellowed “you call this art?!” then ran out of the room throwing a drama queen’s fit. So, instead of doing the rather unfunny court proceedings, I elected to do another sketch, something to perhaps warm the crowd, for the main show. As it required it’s audience to be at a proper temperature for baking.

As I had become a fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in the years beforehand, I was well acquainted with the different sketches, and running gags of the comedy troupe. My parents even when so far as to buy me the script books for the television show, so I would enjoy the sketches without seeing them. So, I chose the parrot sketch, as it was widely considered to be one of the best of the show’s run, and the fact that I only needed three actors, and no outlandish costumes consisting of Viking helmets, or pepper pot wigs. My friends Sam, and Danny joined in the sketch, Sam playing the storekeeper, Danny the train agent, and myself as Mr. Praline.

The big day came, and several classes were jammed into the theater room, violating many a fire code, just so instructors didn’t have to teach, and so my class can show their diminutive acting skills. As Sam’s, Danny’s, and I’s sketch was much shorter than the brain hemorrhage that was Fairy-Tale court, we were allowed to go first. Despite my fading English accent, and occasional missing lines, we were a hit, the audience laughed, and seemed to be enjoying the production. The laughter flowed over me, and I felt for the first time in my life, that I was funny, and that people could see me as something other than that smell kid who wore Hawaiian shirts everyday.

Though this was my final memory of attending the public school system of New Braunfels, it was a fairly positive one. Instead of having the jock patrol making fun of me, or having a rather unsuccessful attempt of trying to get a girl to like me, I increased in some self-confidence, if only by a smidge. I don’t think I will soon forget the barrage of laughter than resonated in that dull gray room on the third floor, though then again it may have just been the voices in my head. Those guys do tend to be a set of gigglepusses.