A few weeks ago, my mom, Kellen and I attended a local concert, celebrating our school’s 100 year anniversary.  Performers were all school students, or alumni of the school, and I think there were over 200 people in the various choirs and band that took turns performing.  It was held in our church and was attended by about 1700 people.  1694 of those audience members greatly enjoyed the wonderful performances.  The other six people, sadly, were sitting directly in front of me.

Six adults, there to watch their middle schooler sing in one of the choirs.  For the two songs he and his choir performed, they were rapt audience members, just as polite and respectful as could be.  For the rest of the evening’s performance, they were quite possibly the rudest people I’d ever encountered in my life.  Talking amongst themselves, leaning over one another to talk  — and not quietly —  at one another, during songs.  Showing each other photos on their cell phones during performances, laughing, cutting up, and even a little bit of chair dancing went on.  They were obnoxious.  This wasn’t an outdoor summer series concert held a local park …… this was a group of volunteers who had spent MONTHS putting this performance together, which was held in a church.  I went from dumbfounded at their rudeness and disrespect, to annoyed, to downright peeved. 

Finally, after about half an hour, I leaned to my mom and told her I had to move seats.  I was afraid if I sat there another moment I was going to burst.  Or worse, hit one of them over the head with my commemorative program and tell them to SHUT UP.   So I got up after the next song, went to the rest room, and then sat down quite a distance from them when I returned.  I greatly enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Problem solved.

Fast forward to Monday evening.  Our middle school and high school choirs, and show choirs, were putting on a concert.  Since Brayden was singing, I attended.  I sat with two other families who also had daughters in the choirs.  We were sitting in our seats, chatting, waiting for the performance to start, and I swear, I thought the lady in front of me shushed us.  Then I thought, no, that can’t be right.  They haven’t even started yet.

But yes indeed, she had shushed us.  And she continued to be annoyed with us all night long, turning her head to look back at us, shaking her head (and her husband shaking his head right along with her) in dismay at our (obviously, unruly) behavior.

For the record, yes, we whispered amongst ourselves in between songs …. typically comments like, “Who is the girl in the 3rd row?” or “That kid in the middle has a good voice.”  During the actual songs, we were attentive and respectful.  We clapped enthusiastically after each performance.  The ONLY thing I can think of that might have honestly bothered that couple was that one of my friends was there with her three year old son …. who, lets be clear, sat in her lap or his dad’s lap the entire time.  He never yelled, or cried, or squirmed, or did anything that a normal three year old might be led to do when its getting close to his bedtime.  He did talk a little, but his parents were always very quick to remind him to be quiet, and good about getting him something to distract him when he started getting bored.  Was he silent the entire night?  No, but overall I thought he acted VERY nicely.  I’m just not sure the couple in front of us agreed, and have no idea what else it might have been that bothered them so.

At one time, the mom sitting next to me leaned over to me and said something about how we were obviously annoying them.  I was glad to know it wasn’t just me who noticed.   And then I couldn’t help but compare our behavior to the behavior of the people in front of me at last week’s concert because clearly, the couple in front of us were annoyed, just like I was last week.  The difference was that we were in NO WAY disrespectful to the performers — any of them.  Even when our own children were not on the stage, we paid attention to the performances.  And let’s be realistic, its a concert for middle and high schoolers, with 99% of the audience comprised of family members.  Is it really reasonable to expect total silence, with small children there?  And I still didn’t think the talking that we adults did was rude or disrespectful.  Really, that woman would have had to have bionic bat ears for our talking to have disturbed her.

At the end of the performance, one of the choir members came up …… apparently, these people were his grandparents.   And as luck would of course have it, the student’s mother is an employee at our school.  Of course she is.

My friend and I just laughed because doesn’t it just figure that the two people we would annoy would wind up having a tie to the school??

As I got up to leave the auditorium, I came to two realizations:

1.  Honestly, we did nothing wrong.  I’m not quite sure why this couple had their knickers twisted over our behavior, but **I** wasn’t embarrassed by the way I behaved, so I wasn’t going to let them make me feel bad.

2.  What did it matter anyway?  Its not like I was ever going to see them again, right?

Until an hour later, when I took Brayden for ice cream after the concert ………… guess who showed up at the same ice cream parlor, and got in line behind us?  The grandparents, the boy, and his mom. 

Of course they did.