I was an actor once. A week ago in fact. Then fate stepped in and messed up everything.

See, a bunch of friends and I tried out for our high school talent show using the "She's A Witch" scene from Monty Python and the Search For the Holy Grail. We made the show, easily. We tried out using scripts and no costumes, because, well, you could do that. I mean, auditions were held in the lobby of the high school because our the auditorium was not yet done being renovated. And besides, it was auditions. Anyways, everybody liked our act. Especially the producers of the show.

So, a couple of weeks pass. We, being the lazy, apathetic teenagers we are, do not bother to practice at all. It is now Thursday the 8th. The night of the first rehearsal. Nobody had their lines memorized (not that there's a whole lot), and the one teacher (who is the acting teacher) kept yelling at us about our blocking. Which is our positioning. In a nutshell, we had no clue what we were doing up on stage, and the acting teacher essentially threw us off the stage and told us we had better have something for Monday's rehearsal. So, we decided on the spot that we would meet Sunday at 3 PM at this one kid's house.

Sunday, the 11th, 3PM, at the one kid's house. Half the act is unaccounted for. Those present included me and the kid who gave me a ride (and whose idea it was that we get together), the kid whose house we were at, and the kid who was playing Arthur, who had only one line ("A duck!") and didn't really even need to be there. The girl who was the witch was babysitting, the kid who had the second most lines was playing flag football, and the kid with the third most lines was telling us via AIM that he had no idea that we were getting together. Which was a bold faced lie because he was standing right there when we decided. The random scrubs who had no lines were completely unaccounted for.

So, we being the lazy, apathetic teenagers we are, were reluctant to do all this work with only half the act present. So we thought about it for about a couple seconds and came to a conclusion: We would let fate decide. So, one of us had a quarter on us, delcared that heads meant we quit, tails meant we kept trying to work on it, and flipped it. The coin showed heads. So we quit. Can't argue with fate. Plus, we didn't think it'd be a good idea to try and throw it all together the night of a rehearsal in about an hour, because those of us in charge of the act had stuff to do after school until 5 or so, and some of us had other acts that needed to practice once before rehearsal. So we'da had about an hour to do this. So we didn't bother. And we weren't too disappointed about it, either. After all, the coin doth spake.

Actually, I do wish we had been a little more motivated to do some of this ahead of time. I think it would have been cool. And judging from the entire show that I watched Friday night, we could have easily been one of the top 2 or 3 acts in the show, quality wise. But, alas, it was not to be.

The Other "I was gonna be Bedevere, too" Matthew