Did I ever tell you about my first grade Christmas pageant? The one where I failed the audition for the lead because my mother, over my protests, always cut my hair short, and they wanted a girl with long hair for the lead? And everyone said “Stop blaming your mother… the real reason you didn’t get the part is because the play is a musical and you can’t carry a tune.” ? And then I got cast as a snowflake, which was a non-singing part, and my only job was to stand in the back waving my arms along with the other snowflakes until the end of the play, when we all fell down? And since the school could only afford costumes for the main characters in the play, and since all of the snowflakes were girls, we snowflakes had to wear our slips as our “costumes”? And I felt mortally embarrassed to appear in front of the entire school in my underwear? And all the other snowflakes came down with the stomach flu and stayed home on opening night, and I ended up having to perform alone?
You say I never told you that story? Well, now I’ve told you.