How to distress a music teacher in December

It's not hard to unhinge a music teacher in December. Life is so finely balanced: carved into 15 minute chunks. Every music teacher knows that you must never try to eat an elephant whole. Exhaustion and having no time to think or worry about anything (except at 3am) means that music teachers appear quite calm. They are not worrying that they haven't done their Christmas shopping or ordered a turkey or checked their fairy lights are working or washed the spare bed linen in time for the return of the prodigal daughter. There is a small chunk of time already allocated to those things.

Adding something to a music teacher's schedule, you would think might cause stress but provided there is a fifteen minute window it's all perfectly fine. If there is no gap then the rarely used word can be employed. I'll practise it with you now. Come on. I can do it. "No." See that wasn't so bad was it? Taking something away can cause a brief moment of anxiety but a few seconds later the gap is filled and there is no need to panic.

The thing that really causes stress is changing the time of things. If you had planned to meet a music teacher for coffee in December then remember that 11.30 isn't the same as 11. Changing the time of something without remembering to mentioning it is absolutely the worst thing you can do. Never leave a music teacher sitting in a pub only to turn up and say, "Sorry, I forgot to tell you I wasn't going to be here until 8.30." If you have organised a concert then you must be very clear with timings and never change them. To get a school choir to attend a concert will have required letter writing, permission slip chasing and logistical planning of soloists that would make Santa's elves sweat. You must not send different pieces of information by email that suddenly have the concert starting an hour earlier. If the music teacher checks the timings with you and you have changed them you must be very apologetic.  Know that this change will cause speedy letter writing, permission slip chasing, re-arranging of soloists, who now can't make it because they have a gymnastics competition or lunch with their elderly great grandma. The music teacher will wake in the middle of the night imagining that the fussiest, most complaining parent will arrive with their precious offspring at the end of the concert and book an appointment with the headteacher the next day to demand the immediate sacking of the incompetent teacher. Do not under circumstances say, "Oh well, an hour earlier is probably a good thing. At least the children won't be so tired." This might be true but whatever the music teacher was doing in the hour before (like rehearsing pupils ready for an exam the next day) will have to be rearranged until after the concert and when you can't give an exact finish time of finish the fifteen minute chunk schedule is falling about around the music teacher's ears and she is dreaming of ordering a whole elephant for her Christmas dinner and making everyone eat it whole because in December life is very stressful if you can't eat your elephant one bite at a time.

It's a good job I like elephants.