Beware! The Music Geeks Cometh!

Yesterday and today represent two of my least favorite days to work downtown. Every year, there is some sort of high school music festival involving busloads of band and orchestra geeks and their teachers in downtown Peoria. Is it All-State? I have no idea, but they really irritate me.

Before you all get up in arms and call me a bitch (again), I will preface all of this by saying I am allowed to bitch and moan about music geeks (and call them music geeks) because I was, in fact, a big fat music geek myself. When you start playing the violin at the age of 3 and play every day for the next 20 years (except for the few weeks after my brother broke my arm), you have earned the right to make fun of the next generation of music geeks.

Oh yes, I was a BIG music geek. And because I played the violin, I naturally thought I was better than every other music geek in the world (because I was). I did every violin thing imaginable. I was a Suzuki violinist, so we had weekly lessons, monthly play days, and two weeks of violin camp every summer. I was in All-State Orchestra twice. I had a violin hickey from the first grade until I graduated from college.

So, I get these kids. I've been these kids. But I still find them fucking annoying. Walking down the sidewalks in packs preventing me from entering my parking lot. Walking through the parking lot preventing me from leaving my parking lot. (I swear to god, if that kid hadn't been carrying a cello, I would have tapped him with the front of my car. But, I have a soft spot for cellists, so I resisted.) Camping out eating lunch in the lobby of my office building. Taking up every available seat in the downtown area for lunch.

I do have some positive things to say about these kids, though. They don't jaywalk, which immediately makes them 10 times smarter than Bradley kids. They are fairly well-behaved considering most of them don't have parents with them. You don't hear about them trashing hotels and getting shit-face-wasted like the Basketball kids who show up in March. Plus, they are snappy dressers because they have to perform. I saw an entire carload of 17 year olds in tuxes this morning. How sweet.

And don't get me started on those Basketball kids. They are 100 times worse than the music kids. First, there are more of them. Second, they are here for longer. Third, their parents come with them and, if there is anything more annoying than High School jocks let loose on downtown . . . it's their parents.