Footlifters and Weaponized Foods (Steve)

What should my band play?

The Footlifter sounds like a good one for a fall concert. I have some rising percussionists that would sound great on this piece and it has a lot of unisons, but the tempo will keep everyone on their toes. The dynamic contrasts will keep audience and musician alike engaged. Aliyah's piccolo playing would sound great on this piece, but I'm not sure she can get soft enough on the quieter passages. Piccolo is a beast of an instrument and it takes a certain kind of person to control the beast.

Not only that, I'm getting them started on marching and it's so overwhelming. Seeing that I can barely operate my own feet, how am I going to get the feet of around 50 students to stay in time? I scrolled through a list of marching standards. Not liking any of them, I found an arrangement of Bad Apple, decided it was good, and went with that. Now, to design drill. How do I make eight to fives and basic turns look visually interesting without overwhelming a population of new marchers? I opened Pyware to find out.

My phone buzzed to remind me that I have to make another media appearance in about two hours. Dashing out the door, I took my usual route to the studio. When I reached the jungle portion of my route, Alex crossed my path and greeted me. She carried a duffel bag with a plastic ballet slipper charm on one of the zippers.

             "I have an exam today." Alex looked more subdued than usual. She handed me an invitation and moved along on her way. Looks like I'll have to clear my schedule.

When I got to the studio, I found my room and got camera-ready. When it was time, I made my way to my seat. I would be live in three...two...one.

What am I supposed to say? Oh, right. I'm supposed to explain how schools are supposed to prevent needle cookie problems because I fell victim to one at the end of the year concert. Someone, presumably a band mom, personally offered me a cookie. The cookie was very sweet, but I felt a prick in my cheek and on my tongue and tasted something metallic. I spit it out to find a telltale red streak and a needle.

Naturally, I felt shocked as to why someone would offer me a needle cookie at a concert. The act had to have been intentional because no one carelessly slips one needle into a cookie on accident. Even worse, if I didn't eat it, a student would have. In that regard, I was glad that it was my tongue that got pricked. I Tweeted my bloody cookie mess with the following text:

Did anyone else get a needle in their cookie?

 I got a few student responses.

@little_lise: No, I have not. Is this a part of the #AvengeHavencraft thing that's been going around?
@kenjisugihara: No. Why?
@aliyah-the-piglet: That is terrible! Are you okay?
@engelhardt.han: No. I'll be sure to ask others, though.

Among those responses, I also got this gem.

Land0nLakesButter: haha u deserved that go kys fagot  mindcrack is next
LandonLakesButter: Do you have anything better to do with your life than misspell "faggot" and make pathetic, trite threats @Land0nLakesButter?

Until we catch the guilty party and find out her motivations, Mindcrack will only allow prepackaged, commercially sourced goods with intact ingredient labels and aforementioned packaging. It's the one alternative to a cookie ban that will keep my students and myself from falling victim to weaponized from food items. This will allow for some debate on whether schools should allow parents to bring homemade confections to school functions, but I just don't want anyone else to get suffer any injuries related to weaponized food.