The Archies

 

We had our Fall Festival at school this past Friday night. 

My job for each year’s festival is to be the DJ. 

In preparation for this year’s big event, 

I curated a playlist on Amazon Music. 

It was a mix of Halloween music and upbeat music from different decades.

I even asked my colleagues for song requests so that I knew the music would be relevant. 

 

After I got the sound system set up and tried to connect my phone to the speaker via Bluetooth, 

I realized that I was standing in a dead zone.

My phone had no cell signal

Nor would it connect to the school’s Internet.

The result? 

No access to my carefully curated playlist. 

 

Thankfully, I had packed two computers just in case.

Thankfully, again, both computers would connect to the school’s Internet.

Thankfully, for the third time, a friend let me use her YouTube music account and I was able to access the music with no commercials.

And so, I stood typing in the names of songs from the playlist and using YouTube song suggestions.

 

For an hour and a half, 

All was going well…

Until I played one song.

 

Now. 

I like the song Sugar Sugar.

It’s a cute tune from the 1960s and I have a cup game lesson that goes along with it.

So when I started playing it,

I did not expect the older gentleman who was sitting near me

To jump up and come walking toward me with a sense of urgency,

Yelling, “The Archie’s! No! No! No!  Absolutely not!

Stop that music right now!”

 

Afraid that I had accidentally played a politically incorrect group from the 60s,

Or that I had unknowingly triggered a PTSD memory, 

Or that something was majorly wrong,

I immediately stopped the music. 

My heart was racing and I felt a little sick.

I shakingly fumbled to try to find a new song to fill the sudden silence,

All the while, listening to the man say,

“No bubblegum pop.

Bubblegum pop is terrible.

You can play any other style of music, just don’t play that.”

And then he chastised me for being a music teacher who didn’t know what bubblegum pop was. 

 

After he walked away,

I became paranoid about the music I was playing.

Suddenly, not only was I mindful of trying not to play music with cuss words,

But I was also mindful of not playing music that might trigger someone,

Or in this case, 

Possibly just annoy someone who made a really big, somewhat scary deal about it. 

 

We live in precarious times. 

There is so much deep seated trauma 

That we don’t know how to deal with it. 

There is so much anger and emotion that it explodes at weird times 

And transfers to weird situations. 

An elementary school Fall Festival is definitely a weird time. 

And being yelled at and demeaned for playing a song was definitely a weird situation.  

 

But hey. 

Other than that, I had a nice time. 

And that’s something, right?