"Explain this to me one more time."
It was 3 o'clock on a Thursday in late November. I was standing in the band room, while Emily, my best friend, was trying very hard to explain something to me that I was not comprehending. At all.
"Okay," she said, inpatients creeping into her voice, "Do you remember the name Beth Browning?"
I thought for a moment. "Oh yea," I said finally, "she use to be the music director for the-"
"Corp you just got rejected from!" Em said, a little too happily.
"Thanks for reminding me," I said. "You know, Blue Devils would have been fine." I was still bitter about it.
"Well, anyhow, she left drum corps two years ago because she was going to have a baby,"
"Okay…"
"And she's decided to return to drum corps this year!" Em said this like she had won the lottery.
"Great. She's going back to the Blue Devils which, as you were so kind to point out earlier, I got rejected from. Now I have to go. I'm about to be late for work." I turned to leave.
"No, WAIT!" Em said, "That's just the point. She's not going back to the Blue Devils. She's starting her own corp."
"We've been over this," I told Em. By now, I was completely annoyed and about to be late to work. "Blue Devils or nothing. I'm really not interested in another corp. Now, leave. I have to go to work."
"Just look at them!" Em pleaded.
"What's so great about them?" As much as I loved Emmy, she was really getting on my nerves.
"First," Em said very dramatically, "they're stationed out of Boston. Which, correct me if I wrong, is the city which your dream school is in?"
"Yes, that's true. Great. Anything else?"
"Yes"
Darn.
"Beth wants it to be DCI's first all female corp."
"Great," I said. I had quit listening to Em at this point. I was more worried about the fact that I was late to work. "Can I please go to work?"
"You should check it out." Em said.
"If I say I'll google it, will you let me go?"
"Yes," Em said, I satisfied smile creeping across her face.
"Okay, I will. Now, good-bye." I said, as I left the band room at about 90 miles and hour.
Little did I know how much what Em had just told me would change my life.