Excellent Talents

***Would you like to hear a little story?  What about a long one? What if I tell you there's a surprise ending?  Have I caught your attention?  Keep reading!  

So yesterday I was sitting in the Relief Society room listening to the darling young women share their talents.  Evening of Excellence.  A long standing Young Womens tradition.  One of the young ladies crossed the room and sat down at the piano and played a lovely piece. She did not make any mistakes.  It was excellent.

And that’s when this memory surfaced.  It came up from the recesses of my mind like an unwelcome surprise.
I had once played the piano at Evening of Excellence, too.  And I totally choked.

My leaders had told me I needed to share a talent--though I tried to explain that my talents were not of the talent show variety--they persisted and I consented to play the piano. After much practice, the night had arrived and my chosen piece was the theme song from “Somewhere in Time” (oh the romance of that song!  You remember that most romantic of movies with Christopher Reeve before his accident and how handsome he was and how Jane Seymore was the most elegant of women and how in love they were, and oh, that was so awful when he saw that penny!) When my turn came, I sat down to play.  The room was dark, a bright spot light glaring on my back.  I played my first three bars flawlessly and then. . . then my fingers turned into cold spaghetti.  It was as if I had no more control over my body.  I was frozen in fear, but my fingers kept attempting to pathetically forge onward.  The song went:  Bhum, Bhum Bhum Wrong note.  Bhum Wrong note.  Bhum. Wrong note.  Complete disaster.  I don’t think I even got the final cord right.

I got up and tried not to think about what just happened.  I wished I could go back in time like Christophe Reeve and tell my leaders that I wasn't going to play the piano after all.  Or why not go even further back all the way to the pre-mortal life and get in the Piano Playing Talent line with the determined achievers (my mom was there).  Apparently I had been in the Loves to Cook line and the Appreciates a Good Sunset line but missed the one for the piano.  (That's cuz I was in the Takes Too Long to Tell a Good Story line).

But back to the now, let's hope these folks love me for my other talents, the non-showy ones. Let's move onto the other girls and their lovely talents and forget about mine.  Mine was certainly not excellent! 

Then one of my leaders (who happened to subscribe to the more frank of leadership styles) came up to me at the end of the evening and said, “Honey, what happened up there?”  Ouch!  I hang my head and slouch my shoulders even now just thinking about it! 

I came home from my daughters Evening of Excellence and relayed this resurfaced memory to my husband, laughing out loud at the shame of it all!  We laughed and laughed at how ridiculous it must have been.

“You know what I really have a talent for, hon?” I asked.  Then I told him the answer without waiting for his response (cuz I have a talent for that, too!).  “What I really have a talent for is hearing scary noises in the middle of the night.”  And then he busted up laughing as that is, sadly, an utter truth.  And here's the proof--

So the night before I woke up in the night and thought I heard my baby crying.  So I staggered over to his door,  when I distinctly heard the muffled sound of someone screaming my husbands name ( you like the irony of distinct muffles, right?)  But I did.  I heard someone scream his name.  My brain was immediately flooded in wakefulness (anybody know the name of that brain chemical?  Do fill me in, as it did most certainly did flood my brain).  I was wide awake.   I went and checked on all my children.  All were sleeping soundly--which sadly I was not! After much effort I did achieve sleepiness again.  Phew.  

But then.

THEN

It happened again.

I woke up.   I thought I heard Mr. Bingley’s cries so I walked to his door and then I heard it again.  Muffled screams.  Only this time, not my husband’s name.  My name!  My very own name.  Four times.  I am not kidding.

So I am wide awake trying to solve this mystery.  Determined to get to the bottom of this,  I immediately turned off all the fans.  The fan in the hall and even the sacred-must-not-be-turned-off-for-fear-of-waking-husband fan in my bedroom.  I must hear that sound again to know where it was coming from.  Fans now silent, my ears concentrating, cat-like.

And there it was.

Re-rwerd.  Re-rwerd. Ba-kee. Ba-kee.

And once I turned off those blasted fans and heard that cursed muffled scream again I knew precisely what it was.

A rooster.  A rooster crowing in my neighbor’s backyard. They keep chickens.  Must have just gotten a rooster.  No cock-a-doodle-doo here.  It was a distinctly muffled two syllable scream of my husband's and my very own name.

See.  I have a talent for hearing scary noises in the middle of the night AND a tenacity for determining where they come from. 

Now if I could only have showcased this at Evening of Excellence 20 years ago.

 

**And Christopher Reeve will you please hide that penny and end up with Jane Seymore? Likely my Evening of Excellence would have had a more happy ending if I hadn't been so traumatized picturing you see that date on that blasted coin.  Please.