How To Make Your Arms Fall Off

I have an embarrassing moment I need to confess to you all.  It wasn't one of those I-tripped-in-a-skirt-and-everyone-saw-my-undies embarrassing.  It was a wow-how-did-I-ever-earn-a-college-degree-with-such-a-low-IQ embarrassing.

The background of the story:  I work at a church.  Part of my job is leading worship for the kiddos.  Right now, our worship team is practicing music for a service and we're doing one of those dinosaurs of worship music. What are those things called again?  Hers?  Hims?  ...Oh that's right, hymns.  At least that's the way my team comprised mostly of middle schoolers seemed to react when I introduced this song.  They're just not a part of our normal repertoire on this team.

So where do you go to get the music for a hymn?  A hymnal, of course.  And seeing as we don't have our practices in the church sanctuary, I had to haul 15-20 hymnals back and forth throughout our building each week.  Here is the process I would follow:

#1- Walk to the sanctuary
#2- Hope you won't be interrupting anything happening in the sanctuary
#3- Start at the pew nearest to the door
#4- Grab all the hymnals in that row
#5- Re-situate the hymnals in your arms
#6- Try not to drop the hymnals
#7- Go to next row
#8- Repeat steps 4-7 until 15-20 hymnals are stacked in your arms
#9- Make sure you can see over the mountain of hymnals in your hands
#10- Try not to trip going up the stairs to the nearest door
#11- Almost drop all hymnals trying to open the door
#12- Walk (very carefully) to rehearsal space
#13- Set down hymnals on the nearest flat surface
#14- Reattach your arms (they just fell off)
#15- Wander around in a hymnal-induced stupor asking for an arm massage
#16- Repeat the process (mostly in reverse) after practice

After a few weeks of this, it got old.  I mean, it probably got old just reading it.  Thanks for hangin' in there.  The day after last week's rehearsal, I wandered into the work room that's right across the hall from my office, and as I reached to press a button on the copier, my aching muscles screamed at me.

Can you guess what they were yelling?  Something along these lines: "Karyn! You idiot!  You have a hymnal in your office.  And right across the hall is a copier!  Please, please, please, please, PLEASE just take a copy of the sheet so you can take 15 pieces of paper (NOT 15 hymnals) to practice next time!"

So, with a face red enough to match my hair, my dim brain apologized to my aching arms, and we all made up.  And made some copies.

That is my riveting story for the day.   I'm anxiously awaiting my Pulitzer for that one.  And I am happy to report that the copies we used at rehearsal last night did not cause any muscle fatigue.

Any embarrassing stories to share so I don't feel so stupid?