It's been a weird week. I've had a lot of stuff, good and bad, happening back home and I am full of nostalgia.
My nostalgia looks like radioactive leprechaun pee.
My best friend just graduated from college and got a job warping the young minds of a town in Washington state. As she's about to have students with the ability to google, I will refer to her only as Bailey, or occasionally as I do in life, Bailey-Monster. This is the story of how we became friends.
Let me set the scene. It was the first of November in Laramie Wyoming.
Like this but less inviting
A mutual friend of ours named Jenna invited myself, Bailey and two other girls over for a birthday party. The plan was to go to the one hotel in town that had a swimming pool, rent a room, and swim until we were tired enough to ingest dangerous amounts of sugar and pass out. We set out from Jenna's house and got to the hotel in time to find out that the pool was under construction. Jenna's mother was visibly panicked. She had five, unamused teenage girls in her car and nowhere to take them. She was more likely to be viciously murdered than someone than the tribesman on the Savanna that likes to throw rocks at the lions. It was then that we discovered what her original plan was. She wanted to drop us off at the hotel and leave so she could attend a college party.
Fuckin children won't let me get my drink on
So that's how at the age of 14 I ended up at a college drink-a-thon. Ten miles outside of town. Surrounded by pagans. I'm not being hyperbolic. The party was being run by a guy named Russ with an ugly goatee. Russ was the head of the university Pagan club, and they were celebrating Samhain. My father was never told about this. Daddy, if you're reading this now, I am so sorry, it wasn't my fault. We all stood around the kitchen awkwardly avoiding touching any of the surfaces so we didn't catch herpes. Poor B was a good Catholic kid (my corrupting influence came later) and I was a strictly sober former Baptist. We had wandered into Hell. It smelled like pachouli and smoke.
Like this but less inviting
Finally I couldn't take it any more. I chose the least threatening drunk in the area and asked him "Is there anything here that doesn't have alcohol in it?" He looked at me, blinked a few times. "I'm pretty sure the cider is ok. Yeah, the cider's good." Looking back, Drunky McAlchol was not the best choice to ask. But we were frozen and frustrated and we had a solid hour before the movie theater started its next kid movie. Jenna and the other two weren't willing to risk it but Bailey and I each had a glass. And then we each had three more. It didn't taste funny, maybe a little too much cinnamon but that was all. Thirty minutes later I am playing a Lord of the Rings themed chess set against one of the sober girls, using a terrible British accent, and referring to everyone around me as "Halfling." Bailey thought I was hysterical but she was the only one.
I know what you drank, for it is also in my cup
We left the party, I climbed into the back of the car and pressed my face against the frozen window. It was the best feeling I've ever had. Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" was playing on the radio. I understood it on a level I never have before. Shania's so much deeper than people give her credit for. I tried to tell Jenna this and she rolled her eyes. She didn't understand Shania like I did, and it was societies fault. I explained this to Bailey in halting mostly nonsensical phrases and Bailey says "You sound stupid." I quip back "Yeah well, maybe the spider was siked." Why yes, yes it was. We were hammered. Having now been drunk as an adult, I know for sure what I only guessed then. That cider was heavily alcholic, I was plastered, and my father couldn't find out or he would have me arrested. It's ten years later and I haven't lived with my father in five years, but I'm only posting this because he's in Hungary and unlikely to read this.
Those peasants better not have wifi
When we got to the theater Bailey and I sat next to each other, laughing our asses all the way through Brother Bear. Most of you didn't see Brother Bear, but it was about an Indian (feathers not dots) kid who's brother is eaten by a bear, who he then kills only to magically be transformed into a bear himself to help raise the cub he just orphaned. It's not high comedy, but we got into imitating the bears voices and it became pretty entertaining.
Not pictured: anything normally voiced by squeeky teenage girls
Out in the lobby after the movie trouble started. Two of the three girls still in possession of their language skills got into a political argument. Bush had just won a second term and one of a the girls was a hard core republican. Jenna's mom was taking her sweet ass time picking us up and I finally snapped. I reached my hand into my travel bag for my contact solution. "Guys, this is the talking stick. Take turns." Everyone stops. I'm not holding my contact solution. I am holding my deodorant. Everyone is laughing and Bailey chokes out "Does your deodorant talk to you?" I'm unable to answer. I can't feel my face. I can feel my abs but I really wish I couldn't. Jenna's mom pulls up and has to load five hysterical teenagers into her car.
This is why I took up drinking
Back at Jenna's house her mother, probably asking herself quietly why she decided to have children, set us up in the side living room of the house and went to bed. Jenna and one of the girls went into her room, probably to bitch about how annoying Bailey and I were being. The last girl curled up on the couch and told us that she was going to sleep and that we were going to SHUT THE FUCK UP. We put on Practical Magic in an attempt to wind down. It backfired. At three in the morning we were still giggling. I distinctly remember Bailey-monster asking if we would be able to tell this story later. I said we might want to tone it down a bit. "But we won't tell our parents about this, right?" "Oh Hell no." It was an understanding that bound us together. We had shared in a drunken night of debauchery at the tender age of 14, we had created inside jokes that we still use a decade later, and more importantly I have blackmail material that will last a lifetime.
Congrats on graduating Bailey. Remember that the students you're about to teach are the same age we were when we met. Warp away B-mon. Warp away
No comments:
Post a Comment