Frankly, when I signed up for Senior Board a month ago, it was one of those college applications-based decisions.

What I didn’t know was that participation in the Homecoming Olympics was an expectation of board members. I might as well have closed my eyes and picked which events I was interested in competing in, yet I was still surprised to find that I would be playing musical chairs in front of hundreds of students: my friends, my enemies, the people that I had one class with and never talked to again and total strangers. 

When the coordinators passed out the orange T- shirts an hour before, it started to dawn on me that a freak accident could occur. I might find a way to trip over a chair or someone’s foot, injure myself and shamefully walk off the court. Even worse, I could be the first to get out.

Before I could do anything about it, the Senior team began devising a cheer involving chanting and collapsing to the ground, which took the majority of my energy. 

Soon, the game began: the “Ohhhh… Yeahhh….” song from Ferris Bueller that nobody knows the name of (I just looked it up… It’s actually called “Oh Yea,” but what else could it have been?) poured through the speakers. Twenty-one kids hunched over the plastic fold-up chairs, lunging and shuffling to claim a seat. Someone later said that this was “the worst game of musical chairs” that they had ever seen. At the time, though, I was too busy laughing at the song choice to care.

After a few easy rounds, ten people were left. I watched junior and senior battles unfold around me, and before long, everyone I knew had left the ring. I remembered a friend telling me before that a win could be the pinnacle of my high school career; I found this claim rather disheartening and cliché. I did not want my best memory of high school to come from winning one game, and I did not want to be remembered as the “Musical Chairs Girl.”

Suddenly, we were down to five. I was bracing myself to be ousted. Then it was four. Three. Two. I had anticipated being the first person out – I asked myself in the words of David Byrne of Talking Heads, “Well, how did I get here?” and “What have I done?” 

The music started up again, and then abruptly stopped in an annoyingly vicious cycle. My opponent and I both sprang towards the chair, only to be pushed back by the re-emergence of the music. 

When it stopped for the final time, I flopped back comfortably. Victory was mine.

Until this moment, the eyes of the overwhelming number of students in the bleachers had not affected me. It was only once I won that I could hear their cheering. Afterwards, friends sent me video clips of the faceoff, and it surprised me to see people I didn’t even know shrieking, hugging and guys high-fiving over a person they had never met. It warmed my heart, and reminded me of the uniquely masculine ability to form a bond over anything remotely sports related.

Musical chairs began as an activity that I did against my will, and became one of those things that I will reminisce to my future children about when I speak of my high school years. A seemingly simple game of musical chairs reminded me that many things we encounter in life are the ones we did not anticipate, did not sign up for. Yet, we sometimes find ourselves unexpectedly successful in them. Small accomplishments are not unimportant. If I hadn’t taken a chance, I would never have won that day and wouldn’t have any cool pictures of me to show for it. 

If that makes me Musical Chairs Girl, so be it.