Where's the Meat?

by

Sam Loschiavo

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My Grade 3 teacher had chosen me to play the part of King Wenceslas in our Christmas pageant. We had rehearsed our lines perfectly. On the day of the performance the other Grade 3 class joined ours and there was great excitement. When the curtain, consisting of bed sheets stretched on a cord, was pulled back everyone fell silent. There we were standing before an audience making our debut in drama—the peasant in rags, the page in velvet britches, and I wearing a cardboard gold crown and a Union Jack robe.

We started to sing our lines accompanied by the music teacher on the piano. All was going well until we reached the part where I asked the page to bring me flesh and wine for the peasant. The page whispered in my ear, "Where's the meat?" I began to giggle and couldn't stop. Then a couple of kids in the audience joined in and soon everyone in the room, including the other class teacher, was laughing uproariously. However, my teacher was not amused as she marched me into the cloakroom and dethroned me, remarking, "Sammy, I'm disappointed in you." Later, I apologized but I was never again invited to participate in school plays. The curtain had come down on a budding musical drama career—stopped dead in its tracks.

Today, when I hear the lady in the television commercial barking, "Where's the beef?" I remember and smile.