1984... I was going from a regional band concert to a HS football playoff game on the same day. Got to the field mid 2nd quarter, switched from my concert horn (tenor) to my marching horn (THANK GOD!!!) and took off running to the stands. Being the idiot that I was back then, I never gave any thought to the snow on the ground, or the metal bleachers... Hit the third step - still at a dead run, mind you - and slipped, falling FORWARD into the bleachers... and right onto my horn. I collapsed the daylights out of the bell, and bent probably two thirds of the rods. As I said, thank God it was my piece of s%$t marching horn and not my good one, or I'd have probably sat there and cried all day. As it was, I had to march halftime with the good one, but it went right back into the case after the routine and I sat without a horn the rest of the day. Eric

This didn't happen to me, thankfully, and not as horrific as it could be, but.... When my old high school director was in ninth grade I think, she had this really awesome jazz solo bit. When she got to the school she couldn't find her sax. Finally the director decided that they had to start the concert-without her. The next day she found that her sax had been stashed in a seldom used toilet stall in the boys locker-room, obviously somebody's idea of a prank. I guess it wouldn't be as horror filling if you weren't her, but it totally wrecked her day.