The Thanksgiving Feast - All Food, Not Much Music

Another tale of a hard working, gigging musician - 

The Thanksgiving Feast - All Food, Not Much Music

We got a call to play a Thanksgiving feast at a church, and the offer for pay was just great for the short time we would need to play.  This was right before Eva was to be born, so the extra income would be really nice, and Shelley wouldn't have to exert herself too much at all, especially since the pastor told her they had a new sound system that we could plug into.  The problem with using their sound system, or should I say multiple problems were as follows:
1)  The guy helping us with the sound was the youth pastor, focused on selling his pies to raise money that night, and had little interest in helping us with the sound.
2)  He couldn't get the monitors working, so we lost 20 minutes of sound check time.
3)  He went and did something else, and never really returned as soon as he got the monitors working, so I was left to run back and forth to try to get us sounding good.
4)  The drums were locked in a glass booth, and their monitors were headphones that Glenn said never sounded any better than a buzzing humming mess.
5)  The drums were badly tuned, but we were told that the regular drummer would be upset if we tuned them.  (I shudder to hear his playing).

Well, the dinner was scheduled to start at 6, but at 6:15 they were setting up more tables and chairs because more people came than expected.  By 6:30 the pastor was getting people geared up to get in the line to eat.  That was when I realized that it was a community trough, and pastor had already told us not to shake anyone's hand because swine flu had ripped through the congregation.  Suddenly I was realizing that I was going to stop at Taco Bell later that night.
     They did have us go through the line first which was nice, because I thought we were going to play during the dinner.  boy was I wrong.  People ate, and sat, then the pastor sent them through for seconds.  20 minutes later (it was 7:30 by now) they started auctioning off the pies.  This was when the not-so-enthused sound man, became a very enthused pie autioneer.  There must have been 50 pies.  By the time it was over, it seemed like 100 pies.  It was 8:10, and NOW, they were ready for us to play.  

     Pastor gave a really nice introduction for us, but there was one problem.  People were now tired and ready to go home.  They had eaten, and sat through a long pie auction, and were now putting on their coats, and walking out.  The crowd started at nearly 250 people, but by our second song, that had dwindled to around 75.  by the time we were finished 1/2 hour later, there were roughly 20 people there.  I realized they were all staying because they were the crew to clean up the tables, chairs, and close the place up.
     Pastor apologized for messing up the time as there was no-one there to see us.  We told him we understood, as that has happened many times before, which was totally true.  

You know you are a true musician when the event planner apologizes to you for no one being there for you to play in front of...and it is the 1000th gig this has happened to you.