The unjustness of life

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, life can conspire against you.

In this instance, I’m talking about Himself’s efforts to play the cornet, something he has managed with a good deal of success in the past.

Imagine then, how devastated you would be if when you picked up the instrument, your mouth dried up and felt as if it was full of sand. And when you tried to play, you kept fluffing notes, when before your notes were perfectly in tune. The intense disappointment, for having given up sailing, the major love of your life, and fallen in love with another fickle nymph called Jazz, this one is eluding you too?

Give him his due, if there’s a problem he will go all out to try and fix it. He’s spent hours of research on the matter and thought it might be a yeast allergy. So for the last 3 weeks he’s eliminated all yeast from his diet.

Before last week’s rehearsal he really felt better, but was horrified and dismayed when the practice was no better. After all that effort! And the gig is in August and he has to be in tip top condition by then which means months of practice.

‘So what is it exactly?’ I asked. ‘Do you feel like this when you practice at the workshop?’

‘No, he said. ‘No, the dry mouth started just before we started rehearsing.’

‘Perhaps it’s nerves,’ I said.

He looked at me askance. ‘I’ve never had nerves before, Pop,’ he said, as if nerves were a form of STD.

Since then he’s done hours more research and found that yes, it might be nerves. The research also revealed that betablockers can help, if taken for a short time only. So he went to the docs who said that actually he’d helped an opera singer for the same thing and they worked for her.

He came back delighted clutching his prescription. ‘I should be all right for this week’s rehearsal, Pop,’ he said. And his face fell. ‘I hope,’ he added.

Later on we were eating our meal – mince in his case – and what happened? The crown on his front tooth dropped out.

For those of you that don’t, like me, play a wind instrument, this means you’re unable to play because the blow is all wrong (to use layman’s terms).

Thankfully, he’s at the dentist now having it repaired. Let’s just hope nothing else goes wrong…