TIFU by not thinking of every possibility

Like most TIFUs, this didnt happen anywhere close to today.

Anyway, a few years back on one Sunday morning I was working sounds and lights in a big church, one with a huge organ and a chapel and everything.

Im powering everythhing up and testing things out and plugging mics in and firing up the projectors, and the bass guy shows up and we chat and I plug him into the system and start doing a sound check. He sounds good, all wires work, yay for once nothing is broken and I have some free time until the service starts.

I come back from Panera and I walk into the sanctuary and I hear buzzing coming from the monitors. No big deal, I go and check out the board, there's no signal running through it so that means its an issue with the monitors like something isnt grounded or connected properly.

But there's something bugging me about this buzz, it sounds off and a little more mid range and not quite as consistent as a bad ground, and whats more I tested each individual monitor and they all were working normally. I turn down the main fader and the buzz is still there, which is really weird.

I talk to the organ player Lana saying we might have a problem (the buzz was a good 65 db, loud enough to be really annoying) and she's like "alright Ill stall the beginning of the service a little" and then she sits down and starts her twenty minute long organ intro that plays right before the service.

Then I notice something weird. Everytime Lana plays a low note on the organ, the buzz jumps up to 75 or so db for about five to ten seconds after the note is hit. This should have been a major red flag to me, but the buzzing kind of blended in to the organ music so it didnt click in my head.

Im like "oh, its a problem with the organ monitors in the back of the building" which I hadnt thought about cause I literally never interact with the organ sound system cause its hardwired in and controlled by the organist herself.

So I yell down to Lana to turn off the organ monitor, and she does and the buzzing gets a lot quieter, but does not go away completely, which is more puzzling cause at this point literally anything that can be off is off. This should have been my second clue, that something was literally buzzing instead of it being a wire problem or an electronic problem.

At this point the service should have already started so Im frantically checking the organ monitors for any damage, nah none there.

The only possible electronic problem left is if there was a problem with the microphones that are literally in the organ itself, so I go up to the front of the church and open the trapdoor into the organ and start to climb up into the dark organ innards.

AND A THOUSAND FUCKING WASPS FLY OUT.

Apparently over the time our organist had been on vacation (and the organ remained unused) some animal had chewed a hole in the roof and then the wasps had found this nice dark cool room with a ton of circles and tall things to hang their wasp nests off of and had built the biggest fucking wasp colony you have ever heard about. And they were pissed that their home just randomly started shaking and making a ton of noise.

I scream and bury my face in my shirt and run outside, while the whole choir and music team and clergy team are running out after me cause the sanctuary was suddenly full of angry wasps. Im pretty sure the congregation already had escaped by that point as well. Luckily I had on thick long sleeves and pants, and all of the people on stage were wearing long robes and were able to stick their faces in their robes in time, but I still got stung like fifteen times and others got stung a lot too.

So yeah, that service ended up cancelled. An ambulance was called cause old people and a thousand wasps never mix well.

Tl;DR: I hear buzz. I go looking for bugs, and I find them.