Acting on advice

You know that my sax teacher wants me to play a solo at her wedding reception, don't you? And you know that when I play in public I am paralysed by nerves? Well Dave and (independently) my friend Het suggested I force myself to play to as many people as possible between now and the wedding, in order to get past the nerves.

So yesterday, I took my sax and my backing track to Ruth's house where we were having lunch with two other friends. We had lunch, and decided which of Kent Haruf's novels we liked the best, and various similar matters, and then they told me to get out my sax and play. I played a tune and made one mistake. They were very encouraging; they said it sounded good and if I hadn't pulled a face at the mistake they wouldn't have noticed. In the middle of my second tune there was a knock at the back door. Ruth lives in a terraced house and you can see through the window who is at the door. It was four burly firemen. 

They were calling on everyone in the street to talk about fire prevention because there'd recently been a local house fire. Ruth invited them in and they checked her fire alarms and gave advice, all while Muggins was standing in the corner with her sax. 

Guess what happened next?

Yep. They asked me to play, and I did.

Would you believe this story if it was in a novel?

I told my grandson Gil (9) about it. "Isn't it funny?" I said. 

"I don't know if it's funny," he said. "It's random."