How To Avoid Making A Scene

So last year, I was at an orchestra rehearsal. These rehearsals last a full two and a half hours; I sat as the second chair cellist last year, placing me on the inside ring of players. I was happily playing along about twenty minutes from the end of the rehearsal, when all of a sudden, right in the middle of a symphony, I noticed a strange sensation:

My Pokéwalker had become unclipped from my pants. (For those unaware, this is what a Pokéwalker is.)

That's okay. It hadn't fallen out of my pants yet. No problem, right? As long as I don't lean too far forward or make any sudden movements, I can probably grab it out at the end of the piece. Granted, I'm a pretty emphatic player - not necessarily in a good way, just in an I-move-around-a-lot way.

But no. The consequences were dire. I didn't want the whole rehearsal to come to a stop so that we could have a two-minute banter of my explaining what a Pokéwalker is or does. It would be difficult, but I had to muscle through. Every action I took, every move I made, had to be deliberate. The integrity of the rehearsal rested in my pelvic control.

We ultimately finished the piece, but I couldn't find any nonchalant manner in which to slip my hand under my shirt right around my belt line and grab something. I couldn't go off to the bathroom or anything to get it, either - it would drop as soon as I stood up. At this point, though, rehearsal was so close to done, I decided staunchly that I'd be able to make it. There was no other choice.

I made it a fair way through. I even managed to reach over to the stand once to get out a new piece of music. But then, the tragic moment came: in the middle of a piece, I dropped the Pokéwalker with five minutes to go.

The classic foot-catch: a staple of any longtime scene-avoider.

Crisis: averted.

NOTE: Crisis not actually averted. Everyone saw my foot-catch. Everyone knew what happened. All I did was avoid interrupting the rehearsal. Which is good, I guess.

A Pokewalker-Bathroom Story

So, two of the most common anecdotes I find myself having are Pokewalker stories and bathroom stories. Some of you may not be familiar with a Pokewalker. If that is the case, you're missing out. A Pokewalker is this pedometer shaped like a Pokeball that you can use to catch Pokemon, find items, level up, and attract chicks:

Chick magnet.

Meanwhile, a bathroom is this thing that people often use when they need to excrete bodily fluids and other undesirable content:

Somewhat less attractive
to chicks.

So I often have anecdotes either involving Pokewalkers or bathrooms. Occasions are few and far between when I will go to the bathroom and not return with an anecdote that I find to be thoroughly exciting. Similarly, I will often have embarrassing mishaps with my Pokewalker that will lend themselves to exciting stories.

So about a week or two ago, I was in the bathroom at school, minding my own business and peeing before class. It was a relatively populous bathroom - there were a good four or five people in there. (To give you a general idea, this bathroom has two urinals, three stalls, and four sinks.) I don't normally wear a belt, so my Pokewalker was somewhat loosely clipped onto the rim of my pants, which I suppose left it hanging limply upside-down to the right of my pelvis: the prime position for it to fall off.

So of course it fell off.

And of course, to my right was a stall.

And of course, there were people peeing in the stalls.

Obviously, my Pokewalker had fallen off my pants into the stall next to me, and the kid in the next stall over was undoubtedly like DOOHOOHOO LOOK AT THIS THAT'S LIKE A GODDAMN POKEYMAN-BALLS HOHOHO LEMME TAKE THIS THAT'S JUST TOO FUNNY. If I didn't know better, I'd say I heard giggling coming from in the stall. And I didn't know better.

So I had to keep my cool. I couldn't just pick up my Pokewalker with everyone watching. I finished peeing as slowly as possible, and slowly walked over to the sink and took my own sweet time washing my hands. I had first lunch. It was okay for me to take a while. These hooligans probably had a class to go to. I could wait them out. This was no big deal.

Unfortunately, every time someone walked out of the bathroom, someone else would walk in. I decided I would go out and get a drink, and by the time I got back, they should all be gone. A nice long drink. From a relatively faraway fountain. So I did that. However, when I got back, there were still two kids in the bathroom. One walked out as I walked in, but the other was still washing his hands. No one was peeing, though. I looked over at the urinal and saw that my Pokewalker had fallen right below it - it had never rolled into the stall anyway. Not that that changed anything. I couldn't have just picked it up from under the urinal. "What's that kid doing with his head right where he was just peeing?" etc.

I decided that I couldn't just stand around awkwardly and look like I was waiting for something in the middle of the bathroom. I had to strike. I put on my most confident face and walked toward the urinal. Yes, the other kid was still in there, but being judged by one punk freshman was nowhere near as bad as six. With a full sense of purpose, I knelt down, picked up my Pokewalker, put it back on my pants, and strode out of the bathroom. I was victorious.