Like HL, I'm involved with my local church, though not at the exalted level of Sacristan. Not bells & smells either, though traditional High Anglican, 1662 Prayer Book, Choral Communion.
Those not involved with behind the scenes of services must imagine it's all as calm as it appears, instead of the disasters which seem to cluster round HL and (to a slightly lesser extent) the rest of us.
One of mine concerns Midnight Communion one Christmas. I was on chalice administration (Rector offers the wafers, two of us process in seemly fashion behind him proffering the chalice). Always difficult at Christmas and Easter to estimate the numbers likely to partake, lots of visitors, many who only come for major festivals, etc. You simply don't know how many of the several hundred will actually take communion.
In use were the (very) antique, beautiful, large and very heavy chalices, fingers crossed I didn't lose my grip on mine and give someone a bath in communion wine.
Rector had a beautiful singing voice and after communion, would always join the choir for the final post-communion anthem. That day he'd badly over-estimated the likely number of communicants and we both had lakes of wine left in the huge chalices which he must consume as it's consecrated wine.
The man on duty with me hissed "what are you doing after the service". For a brief idiotic second I thought he was chatting me up, then sanity returned. I said I'm driving home (what else would I do at something after 1.00 in the morning - my partying till the small hours days are behind me). He hissed "If we leave (the Rector) to consume this lot, we'll have to pick him up off the floor, we'll have to help him".
So with Rector still warbling away on Ave Verum Corpus or the like, we solemnly, in full view of the mesmerised congregation, stood in the Sanctuary making merry with Communion wine.
I drove home rather carefully that night.
