Towards the end of the school year there was going to be a talent show. I hadn’t planned on auditioning for it, but my friends Chris and Kelly were going to sing. I stayed in the “waiting” room with them. Kelly auditioned with no trouble. Chris was nervous about auditioning. She didn’t want to go in. I don’t know why…she had a great voice and was in the chorus and had solos before. Still, she didn’t want to go in. Then she decided that she’d audition if I sang with her. She was going to sing “The Greatest Love of All” (by Whitney Houston). I’d actually never heard it before. She handed me a piece of school notebook paper with the lyrics written on it in pencil and I looked them over. When it was time for us to audition Chris decided she just couldn’t do it…and sent me in there alone! I didn’t even want to audition in the first place. How did this happen?!

I honestly don’t remember anything about the audition. I don’t know how I sang a song that I never heard before…maybe I didn’t. Here’s what I do know: since practically nobody auditioned for the talent show we all got in, but they were going to video tape our performances and play them during homeroom one day. I think it was only Kelly, me, and maybe one other girl. I’m not sure how much time we had between the audition and the “performance”, but I know that I practiced a lot until I learned the song and the lyrics.

The day had come for us to “perform” in the Middle School auditorium. No one was there except for our music teacher with the video camera. Right before I was supposed to go on stage to have my song video taped…I had to pee. Bad. I ran around to all of the bathrooms close to the auditorium, but they were all locked. I knew that there was no way I could make it to one of the bathrooms inside the school and be back in time to be taped. I had to go out on stage anyway. And sing. A song that I never wanted to sing to begin with. With a full bladder. On video tape. For the whole school to see. Yippy!

Needless to say it was a pretty awful performance. I’m sure it will surprise you when I say that I don’t have a Whitney Houston-esque voice to begin with, so I was destined to be pretty terrible even without the full bladder. I was basically afraid to sing because I thought that I’d pee myself, so I was quiet and almost monotone. And since I never cared about the talent show to begin with, I just wanted it over with so that I could go to the bathroom and go home. And not pee my pants on video tape in front of the whole school.