I participated in my first official parade yesterday. I say "official" because I have technically been in four parades in my lifetime.

My first parade was my high school's homecoming parade my junior year. We sat on hay bales on a trailer and played the Oklahoma! soundtrack over the speakers, advertising for our upcoming musical.

My second parade was the senior parade after my last day of high school. My friends and I wore pajamas and sat in the back of a truck with pillows and blankets, symbolizing the fact that we would be sleeping in while our underclassmen peers went to school for another week.

My third parade was a complete accident. I was driving back from a musical downtown when I noticed crowds of people lined up on the sidewalk with their phones out, ready to take pictures. A ton of classic cars starting to drive past me, doing burnouts and blaring loud music, eliciting cheers from hundreds of fans. And in the middle of it all was an 18-year-old girl driving a 2006 Gold Honda Accord, surrounded by a bunch of cars that were doing their grand exits from the annual car show.

Yesterday was the 10th annual St. Patrick's Parade in Downtown Wichita. It's apparently been a thing in my hometown for the past decade, but I had never heard about it until I got an email a few weeks ago. I was sitting in my dorm room when I got an email from a local music center with a subject that simply read, "Kazoo Band Needs You!" Needless to say, I was quite intrigued. I opened the email and found an advertisement to play in the Kazoo Band for the St. Patrick's Parade. The message said, "The first 100 people to sign up get a free t-shirt and a free kazoo to play!"

I will rarely pass up the opportunity to do anything that involves a free shirt, so I immediately texted two of my best friends with a screenshot of the email asking if they wanted to do it. I received an affirmative about 10 seconds later, so I registered the three of us to play in the kazoo band. I marked my calendar for the parade and proceeded to tell as many people as possible that I would be playing in the kazoo band. Honestly, the parade was one of the main things that got me through midterms week.

I picked up the t-shirts as soon as I got home, and Sally and Sarah met at my house the next morning. We took some pre-parade pictures and drove downtown, parking a few blocks away from our meeting location. It was a fairly chilly day, but Sarah and I decided to leave our jackets in the car (which was a terrible mistake on my part). We walked to the parking lot, met up with our fellow band members, and picked up our kazoos.

The parade didn't start for another hour, so Sally, Sarah, and I ended up playing old choir songs on our kazoos in three-part harmony and taking TONS of selfies. Once the parade started, we rotated through a set of three songs: "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and "God Bless America." Because nothing says "Happy St. Patrick's Day" like playing three patriotic songs on the kazoo, right?

This parade ended up being more popular than we expected. Hundreds, maybe even a thousands, of people crowded around the downtown district. And there we were, walking with a bunch of strangers and playing songs on the kazoo. This was undoubtedly the most random thing I have ever done in my life.

We probably walked for about fifteen or twenty minutes (maybe more, I'm terrible at judging time without a watch) before the parade route ended. Sally, Sarah, and I celebrated our "first" parade by getting pizza.

So, why exactly did I just share this extremely detailed story of my experience playing in a kazoo band? Part of it is because I was just so darn excited about this that I felt the need to share it with the world. The other part, the bigger part, is that I want to inspire people.

And by that, I definitely do not mean that I'm encouraging everybody to drop what they're doing and march in a parade playing a kazoo.

What I do mean is that I want to encourage people to branch out and try something new. If you have the opportunity to do something that even remotely interests you, go for it! I never would have found out about this had I not randomly received an e-newsletter from this company. Sally and Sarah had no idea about this parade until I shared the email with them, and now we have some wonderful memories (and pictures) that will last a lifetime.

I am proud to say that I am officially an alum of the 10th Annual St. Patrick's Parade Kazoo Band.