Please Return to Your Seats

My friend Amy and I were out tonight and we were reminiscing about a variety of people and events and I was reminded of on one of my most embarrassing moments. I was 16 and getting confirmed at Temple Emanu-El. I had a huge fear of public speaking and requested the shortest possible speaking part. I was given two lines to read; one in Hebrew and one in English. My entire class was on the bema (sp.? and basically a bema is stage [yeah, obviously, I paid a lot of attention at Sunday school]). We were seated in rows across the stage and the podium (I'm sure there is a different word for this, but again, I didn't really pay attention.) was in the middle. Everyone's parents, family, and friends were in the audience. This was going to be no big deal. All I needed to do was know when it was my turn and go up and read my two lines. My turn came, I walked to the center of the bema, walked up to podium, read my two lines just fine, turned to walk away, paused because I realized there was something on the paper I just read from that I needed to say, turned back and read, "Please return to your seats". Obviously, this was an instruction to me to return to my seat and the audience, who was seated at the time, was very confused when I announced this direction to them. There was murmuring and then laughter. I had to return to my seat at that time and wait for this moment to be over. I believe the Rabbi made some sort of joke after I sat down. After the ceremony ended, I joined my parents who were very inquisitive about why I had directed the seated audience to return to the very seats they were already seated in. They had a good laugh as did many others. I recall people I didn't really know giving me a hard time about what I said. It was definitely not a good experience for a 16 year old with a fear of public speaking.