The View from [what should be] the Back Row

Most of the playing I do I get paid for; however, I do play with a community band whose rehearsals are a seven-minute drive from where I live.  It keeps my chops in shape when I don’t have a lot of gigs, and every now and then they throw me the “featured solo” bone (no pun intended!).   We play an annual Mother’s Day concert at a local botanical garden.   This year, I came down with a head cold (you know how the month of May just screams cold season, right?  Oh wait, I have a preschooler, so EVERY season is cold season), and was combating it with an arsenal of zinc drops.  At intermission I popped one in my mouth, figuring I had plenty of time to whittle it down to nothing.  I almost made it.  There was the tiniest sliver floating in my mouth when the conductor was on the podium, ready to start the second half.  I could have crunched it down in haste, but for some reason, I held onto it behind my teeth.  Was it the irresistible flavor?  Did I think it wouldn’t work as well if I chewed it?  I have no idea what I was thinking; in fact, I probably wasn’t.  Before we were a quarter of the way through the first piece, the damn sliver escaped.  During a multi-measure rest I glanced into my mouthpiece, where I could see the drop resting at the throat.  The next time I played, it was sure to go down the shank and into the horn, where it would wreak havoc.  I couldn’t let that happen, so I quickly dipped my finger in and pulled it out.  Not knowing what else to do with the drop, I put it back in my mouth and quickly chewed until it disappeared.

Normally I can do this---and any number of other things---without anyone noticing, because I sit in the back row.  While this group does seat the trombones in the back row, it is an arching back row, so that the trombones are actually quite close to the audience, leaving my deft actions on display for whoever happens to be gazing at the section at the moment.  And, sure enough, the second the drop was back in my mouth, I looked up, only to see a lady in the front row, first whispering to her husband as she pointed at me, then glaring in disgust.  She caught me (catching her staring at me), purposefully turned her head away, and avoided looking at the trombones for the remainder of the concert.   

I should probably feel badly about this.  What if she is so turned off by the piggish behavior of “that disgusting musician” that she stops attending concerts? 

But wait.  If it were me sitting in that audience and I saw someone eat something from inside their mouthpiece, I would probably piss my pants laughing, all the while wondering what the hell story was behind that swift move.  If she was that bent out of shape about my lozenge sucking shenanigans, it would have only been a matter of time before something else rubbed her the wrong way.  Sorry for eating a cough drop out of my mouthpiece Miss Manners, but a sick trombone player’s gotta do what a sick trombone player’s gotta do.