MaryJanice Davidson: Marching band (hair) highlights
Being a writer is great, and being a parent is great, and I hate Marching Band. Whoa! I had planned to slowly lead up to that, but my hatred took over, sorry.
For a while I thought the Marching Band nightmare was behind me. My daughter joined, and I had to do things to ensure that happened, and when it was over I repressed everything. Everything. But it wasn't over. Sometimes I think it'll never be over, like the Saw franchise and movie reboots (I'm looking at you, Spider-Man). I'd ignored how much my daughter enjoyed Marching Band, so it was my own fault I was unprepared when my son decided to join, too.
I can't hide from it anymore, so I'll just come out and admit the things I'm forced to do so my kids can be in Marching Band: getting the forms notarized.
No, wait! I know I'm entitled and tend toward the shrill, but the whole thing is just ... awful. Everything about it is awful. And the most awful part is that I'm the only one who thinks it's awful.
For those of you who have avoided Marching Band trauma, and/or have never had to get something notarized, they both take a bit of doing. Notaries are defined as "a lawyer or person with legal training who is licensed by the state to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents." In other words, if you have vital documents and it's absolutely imperative someone licensed by the state officially witnesses your signature, you go to a notary.
If it's absolutely imperative someone licensed by the state officially witnesses your signature.
Things I have not had to get notarized:
• More than 40 writing contracts for work published in America.
• More than 20 writing contracts for work published overseas.
• Tax documents.
• Permission for a doctor I met five days ago to operate on me.
• Permission for a doctor I met five minutes ago to stitch me up.
• Permission for my 16-year-old to donate blood.
• My living will.
• My dying will.
• My passport.
• My marriage certificate.
• Any/all other government identification.
• A contract with the Disney corporation for the movie rights to my mermaid trilogy.
• Copies of my immunization records.
• Anything in medical charts, including the infertility clinic where I donated eggs.
Now about the above list: I would have been fine with notarizing any of those documents, in particular the writing contracts or the infertility clinic. Well, I would have whined, but not much, because some of the parties sign the contract in New York (my publisher) and some sign it days later in Minnesota (Whiney McWhineypants, or as the contract refers to me, The Writer). It would be inconvenient but understandable if they required a legal witness to my signature.
But they didn't. None of my book publishers, here and abroad, felt it was necessary.
The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) didn't feel it was necessary.
Publishers handling foreign royalties from Thailand, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Australia and Great Britain, among others, didn't feel it was necessary.
The fertility clinic, to whom I donated pieces of my body, not to mention DNA blueprints to make any number of horrible MJ clones, did not feel it was necessary.
Marching Band insists it's necessary.
Things I have had to get notarized:
• Power of attorney form.
• Marching Band forms.
Among other things, Marching Band forms state that if my kid starts acting like a li'l jerkface on a trip, Marching Band can call and command me to pick up my li'l jerkface. They didn't just need my li'l jerkface's signature to ensure this, and they didn't just need mine. Marching Band required my signature be witnessed and stamped by "a lawyer or person with legal training who is licensed by the state to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents."
I'd repressed the experience so thoroughly that years later, when my son produced the dreaded forms, I laughed. "Sure, I'll get the Marching Band form notarized. And my grocery list because that's important, too. Nobody eats until I notarize my grocery — wait, you're serious?" Boy, was my face red, and not from shame: from the rage stroke. Because I have stuff to do, you know? No one was going to lie around for me and think up weird stuff to write about while contemplating getting something pierced because bored bored BORED. Chocolate egg creams wouldn't make themselves, and my highlights were not going to maintain themselves ... that was all on me, baby. Do you think Marching Band cared about my highlights? Do you?
I snatched the forms from his startled grasp. "It can't be the same ones, enough parents complained about the unnecessary-ness of notarizing anything Marching Band-related so they're just standard forms like the kind every school uses for any activity and, oh my God, they're the same forms."
"Are you all right?"
"Notarized? Again?"
"I don't know what that means," he confessed.
"Someone has to watch me sign it! And stamp it! After I sign it! Again!"
"Is this about food? Normally you only scream like this when it's food-related."
"I'm stopping at DQ before I go to City Hall, I'll tell you that right now! I've got to build up my strength for this stupid ordeal!"
"Is Dad home? Maybe I should talk to Dad about this."
"I! Hate! Everything!"
"Even DQ?"
"No, of course not." I instantly calmed down. Hate DQ? Crazy talk. Not even Marching Band could do that to me. Oh DQ, I love thee. I'd never let Marching Band tear us apart.
Look, I get it. We're lucky my kid's school even has a marching band — lots don't. We're lucky it's a great marching band — they win stuff. We're lucky we've got great music teachers — who want to make me go to City Hall so I miss the last 10 minutes of a Simpsons I've seen only 28 times.
I understand this is a good "problem" to have. Which didn't make it any easier to drive four whole blocks to City Hall, find a spot right in front, walk 15 feet and burst in on an unsuspecting clerk who had just slung her sweater over one arm and taken out her keys.
I screeched to a halt, or tried (the city has a good custodial team; one of these days I'm gonna break my neck on their clean shiny floors). "I thought you guys closed at five."
"Nope. Four thirty."
She eyed me eyeing my watch: 4:31. "Oh. This is awkward."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, because I don't even want to be here. Just being inside City Hall is making my skin crawl. No offense."
"????" (She didn't actually say anything, but her eyebrows spoke volumes.)
"I just think it's dumb that I need these notarized." I flapped the forms at her. Surely a government employee would understand my suffering under a cruel regime making silly arbitrary rules. "It's a waste of my time. And yours!" I belatedly realized. "We're sisters in solidarity! Sisterhood rules, Marching Band drools. Anyway, will you please notarize this for me so I can depart and never return?"
"Sure." (God bless public servants, who put up with way too much from me, and probably others.) "And..." Six seconds passed with the speed of a hemorrhoidal snail. "There."
"Thanks. Sorry to keep you late."
"Thanks. Sorry Marching Band did this to you again."
"Oh! You remember me from years—"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I'll go."
"Thanks."
See? See how traumatized I was by that interminable 180-second encounter? And the notary wasn't having much fun, either. All that so if my jerkface son acts up on a field trip, I must come and get him. Which is ... what's the word? Oh, yeah: standard. As in, not requiring a notary, her legal training, her stamp or her overtime.
But at least it was over. I made the harrowing 90-second journey back home and thrust the papers at my amused son. "There. Get them out of my sight, out, out, damned Marching Band forms."
He held up one of the three pieces of paper I'd brought to City Hall. "You forgot to have her do this one."
"Maybe you didn't hear me: out, out, damned marching band forms."
He fled. And now we're at an impasse. Not he and me. Marching Band and me. And I'm not unaware it's a win/win for my nemesis. They'll either get their forms notarized, or I'll be forced to spend more time with my son. Will the nightmare never end? Cue my Wrath of Khan roar: "Marching Baaaaaaand!"
MaryJanice Davidson is the international bestselling author of several books, including the Betsy the Vampire Queen series. She has published books, novellas, articles, short stories, recipes, movie reviews and rants. Readers can contact her at contactmjd@comcast.net, find her on Facebook, Twitter (@MaryJaniceD) and her blog. She lives in St. Paul, Minn., and has been sentenced to a husband, two teenagers and two dogs.