The exhausted dad: You can’t take us anywhere

Whether we intend to or not, our family of six makes an impression when we attend public gatherings.

No matter how discrete we are, people notice when the Wilson Clan enters a room. One kid will trip and fall in front of everyone. Another will be wearing something colorful and ridiculous. And all of us will be talking loudly. Our inside voices are much louder than all your inside voices, apparently.

For these reasons, we try not to unleash the Wilson tornado in full force too often. We split the kids up for doctor’s appointments and various errands, and you sure as (expletive deleted) won’t find all six of us shopping at the grocery store.

Some excursions can’t be avoided. Recently, my oldest daughter played the clarinet in her first band concert. Even a crowd averse person like me wouldn’t miss the spectacle of 30+ middle schoolers fumble through a 25-second rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

The venue: A middle school gymnasium. The ask: Bring the musician to the venue 45-minutes early. Complication 1: The rest of us waiting 45 minutes for the concert to begin. Complication 2: The band teacher requested that sixth grade families be respectful and stay through the seventh and eighth grade performances as well.

Honestly, my dude, letting us leave early would be the more respectful choice for the rest of the audience.

Icy roads and a stage fright-riddled middle-schooler set the tone for the evening. She needed to wear black pants for the concert, and of course, those had to be washed and dried at the last possible minute. Was she wearing slightly damp pants? I don’t know for sure, but my daughter’s “It’s fine” suggests yes.

She hadn’t performed anything in front of people since first grade. She shares her dad’s anxiety for all things and situations. Walking into the school, she panic-yelled every word she spoke. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO SIT?” “WHAT IF I DON’T PLAY THE NOTE RIGHT?!” WHAT IF MY CLARINET RANDOMLY BREAKS IN HALF?!”

Honestly, I was happy to pawn her off on the band teacher for a bit. That still left the rest of our clan with 35 minutes to fill before the concert (because we were 10 minutes late, obviously).

My wife wanted to make sure we secured enough seats and wanted to go into the gym early. I wanted to walk in at 7 p.m. on the dot, stand in the back, let out a few hoots at the close of each song and then retreat immediately to my car. We went with her plan.

Of course, EVERYBODY noticed us walk into the gym. We have yet another nasty respiratory virus in the house, and look, we like to be responsible with our germs. So we wore masks. The big, white, extremely noticeable N95 masks. We were obviously the only ones wearing them, and I don’t know if you remember this or not, but masks were somewhat of a divisive issue around here for a while.

Thankfully, nobody really cares what people do with masks nowadays, but people still lay their eyeballs on you. I would stare at an entire family walking into a public event wearing medical-style masks! It’s a spectacle! If I were me sitting there, I’d be wondering if I was vulnerable to the latest viral attack.

(My oldest daughter, meanwhile, sat with her bandmates maskless, obviously. Before someone emails me, I contend that she was not sick that day AND she tested negative for COVID that afternoon. We’re responsible!)

Overall, my other kids are excellent audience members. They sit silently at assemblies and at movie theaters… no major issues to report in 11+ years. But, see, at an event like this, especially when you’re a half hour early, chatter happens. And, because we’d spent the last several months at school and work and other public places maskless, we forgot about the different vocal requirements.

With thicker masks, it just seems like you’ve got to shout for people to hear you. The N95s, though, they aren’t as thick as you think, and they leave a space between your mouth and the mask that reduces the muffling effect of other masks that lay directly against your face.

So the whole Wilson clan is practically yelling at each other in the minutes leading up to the concert. At one point, my wife tried to take a picture of our daughter sitting up front, then leaned over into my space and told me, “I need to take a picture from here because this lady’s head is in the way.”

The lady immediately turned and glared at us. Even though it wasn’t ‘Til Tuesday, those Voices Carry.

Later, once the concert started, the whole family made a scene and hooted for our middle schooler, plus waved at her about a thousand different times, probably messing with her concentration. My youngest son, 5, seemed to enjoy the music because he started loudly humming along, which inevitably led to him making loud WOOSH and SPPSSSSHHHSHHHPOW superhero noises.

During the concert by the seventh and eighth-graders, I got distracted by a percussionist kid who had a rattle instrument thing he shook at three different points in the song. It seemed like he was off-beat, so I asked my wife, a former band geek, if that kid messed up. She shushed me. People looked.

When we left, my younger daughter tripped on the bleacher. No harm done. But people looked. And once outside in the parking lot, my 5-year-old removed his mask and started making the superhero noises as loud as he could, I think, as a reward for what he considered a successful attempt at being quiet during the concert.

All and all, I would say we never quite reached the point of being an outright disruption at the concert. But people looked. The Wilson Clan gets noticed.

After the concert, we hustled to McDonald’s as a treat for our music star (and her courteous listeners). Everybody else at the concert seemed to have the same idea, but look, I ordered the food ahead of time. We let others go ahead of us in the drive through to give the restaurant several minutes to prepare our order (A family of six houses a massive amount of McDonald’s).

After a while, we entered the drive through to pick up our order. It wasn’t ready but the staff told us to wait at the window. The line behind us grew and grew. More concertgoers, presumably. It didn’t take too long to get all our food, but once again, people noticed. Because you can’t help but notice the Wilson Clan, no matter how hard we try. My preemptive apologies to you all.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.