Bad Timing

What do you think of when you hear the bassoon, the oboe and the piano playing together?
Probably not what I thought when I heard them yesterday. I went to a Lunch Hour Concert with my mum and got a lesson in Bad Timing.

We were sitting in our seats waiting for the concert to begin, when I remembered I hadn't given her the printed copy of an email from my son in Scotland. Instead of putting it in her handbag she began to read it straight away. The seats were filling up fast. My old professor of psychology sat down immediately in front of me.

Oh, said my mum, who hadn't got her hearing aids in, and was reading the bit about how my son is trying to potty train his 19 month old daughter. They're starting very late, she went on loudly. I used to put you on the potty after every feed from when you were a very little baby. Did you? I said, in a midstrength whisper, trying to bring the conversation down to a lower level. And you ALWAYS DID SOMETHING, she ended with conviction.

Normally I would have contested this, and defended the right of my son and daughter-in-law to wait until their daughter began to show some interest in using the potty, but due to the circumstances I was reduced to hissing Yessss. Who wants their old psychology professor to hear such things? Not to mention everybody else.

And so it was that when the bassoon, oboe and piano began to play the delightful strains of a Saint-Saens sonata, some Nussio variations, a duo by Villa-Lobos and a sarabande by Dutilleux, I heard only the sounds of breaking wind and tinkling water, and when it was over, applause seemed highly inappropriate.