Hypocrites? Or Just Human?

Here we are on Monday morning, just completely wiped out. I can never quite figure out why playing music for twenty to thirty minutes two evenings in a row can turn us into zombies.

We began preparing for the conference Thursday. That is, I spent two hours cleaning the van and taking it to the car wash. Since we were going to be spending significant hours in it I felt it would be nice to have it clean and homey.

Then on Friday morning we started right in with loading up the trailer with all the gear and instruments, running everyone through the shower (ONE shower. We have ONE bathroom and SIX people. Do I get any brownie points for that?) I checked through our music, copied a few more chord sheets, made new transparencies for some of the songs. I made dinner. We ate it and cleaned it up. We were out of here by 1:00 pm.

We arrived at the venue (don't you love that fancy word?) about 3:30 and began setting up. Done by 5:00. Made a quick run to the local music shop to buy more speaker stands, but decided against it when we saw what they were asking for them. I couldn't believe the prices in that store. I looked at violin strings. They sell the brand I like, and they even had a set with rosin designed specifically to be used with those strings. Cool. Until I looked at the price. Now, y'all, I know already that violin strings cost significantly more than, say, guitar strings. GuitarGeek is used to spending about five bucks for a set, while I have to pay about forty. Forty dollars! Ten bucks per string! But that's nuthin'. At this store, they wanted $86.00! Eighty-six! But, be still my beating heart, it was a fantastic bargain, because the set was marked down from $161. Oh heavens. Something is wrong here. As my dad used to say, "That just burns me up!"

Anyway.

Next stop after the music store was some place for a bite to eat. We chose King's Classic, mostly because it was pretty much the first place we came to. It was a package deal with Amigos included. We all ordered, and when DrummerDude's food came I was ticked. It cost $4.69 for an itty bitty cheese tortilla about as big around as a cigar. Well, maybe a little bigger- but not much! It cost way more than our burgers did, and was way less food. Now, I admit, he got pop and "mexi-fries" with it, or what ever they call them fancy tater tots. (I'm using my phony southern accent here for emphasis. If you want to rant, you have to be southern, I'm thinkin'. It just works so well. Y'all.) But that meal was about fifteen years out of date, meaning, it would have been the right amount of food for DrummerDude fifteen years ago when he was four. Y'all-- it just ain't right nor fittin' to charge that much for that little.

So. I was feeling just a little feisty after the price shock at the music store-- plus, the disappointed look on DrummerDude's face cranked up the mommy defense system-- so I marched up to the counter with the offending article of food in hand and complained. I can't believe I did this, because I never used to do this kind of thing. The gal took it into the back and had the cook (can you really call him that?) make a new one, measured perfectly. The new one came exactly the same. I asked for the old one back, because both together would make a reasonable meal for DrummerDude, but she said she said she threw it away. For some reason that just torqued me. She said she was just trying to make us happy, and we said we knew it wasn't her fault that the picture on the board didn't match the product, or that it was ridiculously over-priced, but we still were not going to eat at that particular joint ever again if we could help it. Have a nice day.

And then we drove on the to conference to lead a group of people in music to worship our loving, holy, majestic, patient heavenly Father. Sigh.

More later...