I
told you before about walking the 50 miles in 20 hours race, I
actually ended up doing it three more times. The middle two are not
terribly interesting just a lot of walking and a lot of pain. The
fourth time I did it though there was some drama. The drama came
almost entirely because this time through I brought my girlfriend. I
told her it was a good experience and that she would do fine and it
would be fun to do, because I am a liar. My dishonest methods for
convincing her to come along aside she did really seem interested in
trying a test of her endurance. We started out two blocks from my
house early in the afternoon figuring to get a jump on it and it was
pretty smooth sailing for about the first 10 miles. I find that in a
pinch even those without much athleticism or training can do about 10
miles before they collapse. 10 to 25 miles starts to weed out all the
people who were not really that interested or dedicated. On the route
we were taking miles 10 to 25 went through a canyon across a highway
and into the night and that is when we started to slow our pace and
settle into the grind. By the time we got to the halfway mark all of
our friends given up and gone home so it was just her and I in the
dark cooling night. From the halfway mark of the 35 mile mark she
started to get increasingly cranky about the physical pain. I'm the
type of person who actually likes to hear someone else complain so
that I can in turn be stoic and its kind of a power trip. It started
to make her even more angry that I was acting like I felt nothing and
I wouldn't complain. From 35 miles to 45 miles, which took us about
three hours, she stopped and yelled at me a couple of times and even
punched me a time or two to try to get me to complain which made it a
lot funnier for me and the distraction was more than welcome. I think
the race can be divided into three equal parts, the first 30 miles,
the next 15 and the last 5. That last 5 miles when the sun is coming
up and you have walked through the whole night and every part of your
body is in immense pain and the only thing that can keep you going is
the humor you find in your girlfriend's unadulterated rage. That last
5 miles took us about two hours and for virtually the whole time she
was yelling at me, cursing at me telling me, telling me how much she
hated me how stupid an idea this race was and I would just tell her
that if it was too hard for her she could just quit. It was
especially delicious because she was always going on about how much
more pain and suffering women could endure than men. I was making
very calm and understated observations about the intense pain that
was racking my body and how the key for me was to let my body be
subject to my will. When we turned the last corner and were only a
half of a mile away from the finish line she broke down and was
crying and leaning on me and telling me she was glad that we did this
thing together. I was in no condition physically or mentally to be
leaned upon in any sense but she wanted to walk in together hand in
hand and I was too far down the rabbit hole to resist. Arm in arm we
stumbled to the finish cried, hugged and got in the car to drive
home. I was so tired that I drove off the road and into a field when
the road unexpectedly teed. I backed out and got us home okay. I
dropped my girlfriend off and then went to bed and didn't wake up for
18 hours.
The Taurus is the Most Expensive Car of All Time
There
was a time as a young man that I suffered severely from migraine
headaches. One of those times in the spring of my senior year when I
driven up to the mall with my brother and good friend Cole to do some
shopping. Because I had a headache I turned the controls of the 1978
Ford Fairmont sporty two-door model to my friend so I could relax in
the passenger seat and wait for the neurological storm to pass. He
was at the stick for about 20 seconds when he lurched forward and
hit the most expensive car in the entire world, a Ford Taurus. We
were going about 2 miles an hour when the car struck but when the guy
jumped out of his car he acted like we'd assaulted him and his family
personally. His wife and baby were in the car, he didn't check on
them before he came out looked at the car. He said we ruined the
bumper, which would cost two grand to fix, because the plastic shell
had popped up in the center about 1 inch. My brother, ever the
pragmatist, walked over and pressed little bubble of plastic down
with his finger and it popped right back in place. You would think
that would mollify the guy or that his wife was telling it was no big
deal, or the fact that my friend and I were obviously terrified of
the ramifications of wrecking a car on the freedom and finances of a
17-year-old. You might be wondering why was referring to the Ford
Taurus the most expensive car possible, I mean it seems laughable,
but that is what the guy kept saying. He was going on and on about
how we really messed up and how we couldn't hit a more expensive car.
When he was otherwise occupied my brother mentioned that we could
have hit any number of more expensive cars by throwing a rock in
virtually any direction. His wife had just about talked him into
giving us a pass when a Dudley-Do-Right busybody from the local bike
shop came running out with her portable phone saying that she saw the
whole thing and she already called the cops. Okay thanks, idiot. Then
we had to wait there for the cop to arrive, he had to survey the
damage, get all of our insurance information, and hear both sides of
the story. It took forever. My friend was explaining that he had gone
from driving his truck which had differently shaped and sized peddles
and that he'd slipped off of the brake and slow rolled into the dude
that wouldn't let this thing go. After we got all sorted legal-wise,
we hit the road and spent the rest the afternoon and most of next
week making fun of the dude and his super-expensive car. I can't
remember exactly what happened with the insurance on that thing but I
want to remember I had to pay my dad back a deductible but it still
wasn't very much. Cole was kicked off the substitute driving team,
he'd had the car for less than a minute when he wrecked it with laser
like precision into the biggest douche bag around. Maybe that wasn't
his fault, but why risk it? I shudder to think if he would have hit a
Corolla.
Spring Break - Lots of Making of Outs
This
spring break trip came just recently after my potential girlfriend
became my actual girlfriend and just past the day she let herself
into the carnal cabal of the kisser-faces. The upshot there was that
she was possessed with the converts zeal and wanted to try out some
making out when ever there was time. There is nothing more
entertaining on the face of the earth for a large group of people on
a trip together then to have to constantly wait for the PDA couple to
be ready for group time. We were not making out in front of everybody
but we were definitely taking more than our share of private walks,
naps, and stolen moments. At first everyone was being pretty cool
about it but by the third day the rest of the group was getting a
little testy and they were starting to make comments that seemed to
me like they were getting a bit irritated. The problem was that in
the scales of fired up pubescent sexual frustration the opinions of a
couple-of-eight dudes and chicks was easily over-weighed by the sweet
kisses of a pretty girl. Eventually there was mutiny and the group
broke up with the three unattached boys heading into town to find
babes of their own. In theory that could have happened, but based on
how unhappy their were at the end of the second and third days out
woman hunting I had the strong intuition that they had not been as
successful as they had hoped. The other girls and one other couple
stuck it out with us and moved from Red Cliffs into the nearby town
where my girlfriend's best friend's sister lived to take some real
showers and to sleep on some couches and beds. We left her sister's
house in the morning and drove back home the back way through a town
called Virgin which compels all and sundry to stop at the city
welcome sign for a picture. The trip back was quiet and everyone in
my car but me fell asleep. If you cannot be at peace in a car full of
good friends and memories then you may never be.
Something I Forgot From Last Summer
I
ran into an old friend last night at Costco who reminded me about a
time that she and I and another friend blew up my dad's truck. Truth
be told they actually didn't have that much to do with it except for
being passengers. My friend Jordan, the girl I would meet much later
at a local Costco, and I had driven up to Salt Lake go clothes
shopping for school. That means this story would've taken place about
eight months before spring break so some sorrys are in order, and now
the story is too. Anyway, we had driven up there to the VF factory
outlets which purport to have various outlet stores but I've never
seen Lee jeans actually sold anywhere else. I think it's just a
front. We shopped a little and we hung out a little and we were
heading home in my dads newer truck when we were heading up the hill
at the point of the mountain I put the truck in cruise control at
about 70 mph (1.21 megajoules for the international audience). That
was a pretty good idea, until the engine exploded. I don't mean
exploded in the sense that a cooling hose came off and a bunch of
steam came into the cabin and that made us all scared but there was
no harm done. I mean exploded in the sense that a piston broke off
from the crankshaft and came out of the top of the engine and almost
out of the hood. The other half of the piston still attached to the
crankshaft had somehow got flipped around inside the engine and
jammed about 200 holes through the oil pan before it to came to a
halt. Was it exciting? More like terrifying. All I could think was
that I had to tell my dad that his truck exploded. Of course none of
us had a cell phone at the time so we had to pull off to the side of
the road and wait for some passersby to help. After a few
well-meaning but useless Samaritans stopped a police officer came by
and let us radio to dispatch who then called my dad and told him the
bad news. My friends Jordan and Jessica got in a call to her sister
and a little less than an hour later she come and picked them up and
they abandoned me to my fate. I had to sit and wait on the side of
the freeway for two or three hours while my dad organized a get the
truck home party. His brother is into truck repair and had access to
a towing thing to get it home. When he got there he said never seen
anything like the engine coming out of the hood and the oil pan. The
whole time we were loading up the truck to tow it home to see if
there was anything we could do about getting it fixed my dad was
running a constant nonstop stream of things he thought I did wrong to
make the engine explode until my uncle finally stepped in and said
that actually something like that was just bad luck and there was no
way I could have prevented it or caused it. That shut my dad up for
the afternoon but he forgot the next day, and week, and month and if
it is mentioned still to this day he remembers that I was , to quote
him, 'romping on that engine' to make it explode. The moral here of
course is if you romp on engine your friends will abandon you and
your dad will be mad at you for the rest of your life.
Spring Break - Some Gay Guys Get Really Sunburned and Play a Guitar
Our
next-door neighbors at our campsite where gay couple in their 50s
from California. To that point in my life I've never met a homosexual
couple and 'gay' was use only as a pejorative for something boring,
uninteresting, lame or effeminate. They were there hiking, painting
and camping in Red Cliffs pretty much like normal people as far as I
could tell. Besides having shorter shorts than most guys and not
wearing their shirts enough they seem like pretty okay dudes. One day
when we were heading out hiking we passed them on the trail as they
were setting up easels to paint a gnarled tree growing along the
path. One of the guys, being quite furry and quite sunburned, had
huge flakes of skin peeling off and sticking into his back hair in a
horrifying image that haunts me to this day. My girlfriend and her
friend stopped and talked with them for a little while and they
offered to come by later to our campsite and play some guitar and
sing some songs. My girlfriend enthusiastically took them up on that
offer but I was little wary. What if they came over and did gay
stuff? What would we do then? We would be left without recourse
because we had invited them into our campsite and I was not sure if
the same rules apply to homosexuals as do to vampires but I was
pretty sure if you invite them in that's bad. We hiked for a couple
of hours and came back by to see that they had done a pretty good job
of doing a watercolor painting of a gnarled tree sitting in the path,
the sort of thing that everyone knows is technically art but
generally ends up a thrift store when the person who loves it dies.
We got to camp, made a fire, made dinner and we talked and joked
sitting around the dying fire our new friends made good on their
offer and came by with a couple of guitars and an unrealistically
cheerful attitude for people completely sober, so I assumed that they
were not. I was right they pretty early on confess to having partaken
of illegal mind altering herbs and alcoholic beverages. I was really
nervous then. Gay, drunk and high? How could this possibly and well?
Why am I writing so me rhetorical questions? The last one wasn't
rhetorical, I was wondering if you had some insight. They asked what
kind of music we liked, and my girlfriend told them all the girl
singers she liked and we told them Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel,
Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Somehow these guys knew all about those
bands and how to play their songs. I guess people even way back in
the 60's and 70's knew about the Beatles. They played their guitars,
sang songs and invited us to sing along when we knew the words. I
didn't know if this was how homosexuals normally acted, but this
wasn't gay at all, it was actually pretty cool. We all got into it
and had a pretty fun night, when they were too tired and ready to
head off they played a two guitar, well harmonized version of 'The
Boxer' by Simon and Garfunkel. It was amazing in the cool, quite, new
moon night with the light of the fire makeing a warm circle around
our impromptu concert and I snuggled in tight with my girlfriend
while they sang. When they finished we applauded, they said goodbye
and I never saw them again. It was the first time in my life that I
can remember thinking that there might be more in heaven and earth
than was drempt of in my philosophy.
Spring Break – McDonald's Wake Up Gambit
I'm
really not much of a sleeper especially out camping. I'm one of those
people who is a night person and morning person. The kind of person
I am not is an afternoon person. Maybe that's my Hispanic heritage,
that I don't technically have, that compels me to an afternoon
siesta. No matter the cause, any time I was on campouts or sleepovers
I was always the last one to go to sleep and the first one to wake
up. Then I had to sit around and try to entertain myself for next
four or five hours while everybody else sleeps in. After the drug
stupor day the next morning I woke up at five o'clock knowing I had a
long way to go until actual morning. I stealthily found my keys, got
in my car and drove the 8 miles into town for breakfast at
McDonald's. While I was there I got enough for everyone else and
brought it back. This was partially altruistic and mostly excuse for
me to wake everyone else up so that we could get going. Somehow
though, after I woke them up I miscommunicated the fact that the food
was for everybody so I was sitting at a table at the campground
eating all by myself with three big bags of food and a whole bunch of
guys there looking at me. I thought maybe they didn't want any and
so we stood there in a McDonald's standoff until I asked they were
sure they didn't want any at once the miscommunication was resolved
and the food was devoured. The ruse had worked and I had everybody
up and going rock climbing and like I've always said a McMuffin is a
small price to pay for getting a jump on the day.
Spring Break My Friends Fight the Drugs
The
next morning we went out hiking and two of the guys that were with us
were getting a little restless because there were no girls there for
them. On our way back from hiking up the river they were making plans
to go into town and see if they could encounter some of those low
self-esteem spring break girls of legend. The only problem there is a
they hadn't brought a car so they were asking if they could use mine.
I was super excited about that idea because they both had woken up
saying they had a headache and the only painkiller that was available
was some Tylenol PM, which if you're unfamiliar with that particular
OTC drug contains a bit of a sedative. They had been fine for the
hour or so we were hiking but when I started to come back they were
looking pretty droopy. They were almost falling asleep walking as
their heads would roll all the way down to their chests and then they
would snap back up and look around kind of confused. When we got back
down toward camp in the asked again if they could borrow my car and I
told him that would be a firm no. They said they were just fine and
they could fight through the effects of the nighttime Tylenol but I
honestly wasn't entirely convinced. Definitely not convinced enough
to loan the my car; my one possession on earth besides my clothes.
They were also not welcome to borrow my clothes. I told them they
should lay down and take a nap for a little while but they said it
was too hot and they wanted to go find some girls. So we compromised,
I agreed to drive them into town and drop them off while we went
grocery shopping and we would pick them up a couple hours later when
they found all the women they needed. We drove into town and dropped
them off as planned but when we came back four hours later after some
rock climbing and grocery shopping they were nowhere to be found.
These were those pre-cellphone times when you got lost it could be a
long-term to permanent thing. They didn't have a ride back to camp,
back home or anywhere. We sat and waited for about 45 min. for them
and it was starting to get late and I was starting to get pissed. I
was driving around in a bit of the cranky snarl when we saw them the
park leaned up against a tree, sleeping it off. I guess in the end
the sedative won and I had been absolutely validated in my assessment
about their driving abilities. We collected them up and put them in
the car and drove back to camp. We woke them up enough to get them
into their beds and they slept the rest the night as per their plan
for wild debauchery. Those were actually the only drugs any of us
took on spring break and it sucked. See kids? Drugs are bad.
Spring Break - A Nutless Car and Brushing Our Teeth
We
left on our trip late in the afternoon and my poor wussy car was so
very gutless that when we would come up to a big hill on the way down
it couldn't, even in its lowest gear, get up the hill with five
passengers and their gear. Two different times I would build up as
much speed as I could on the run up to the hill and then about half
way up all of my powers would be consumed and we would slow, sputter
and stop. Then the three dudes in the back would have to get out and
walk the two miles or so to the top of the hill where I could pick
then up again and we could ride down hill and along the flat bits
together. This transportation hiccup was making the
get-out-and-walk-ers a bit testy and I was getting anxious after the
second hill that I might have to ask them to walk again but
thankfully there were just the two insurmountable mountains on the
way down to our campsite. We got to our campsite at dusk and we just
had time to set up our tents and build a fire before dark. I had
never been on a big mixed gender camping trip before and I was not
sure who was supposed to do what because I had always had some
structure and direction in camping. What I did know was that I was
going to sleep in the same tent with my girlfriend, hooray, and two
other people, boo. When we had eaten and were ready for bed a bunch
of us went at the same time to the water spigot to brush our teeth.
When we got there and started brushing we all were brushing wondering
how long we needed to go to not seem like we were the kind of person
who would brush insufficiently. I was done in thirty seconds but I
kept brushing, determined to go at least as long as my girlfriend and
her best friend who was with us. It had turned into a dental hygiene cold war and we all had been brushing for something like 5 minutes
when a girl finally broke and spat and rinsed. We all followed suit
and she asked if we had all been waiting to see how long everyone
else was brushing to not look like the dentally retarded outcast. It
was one of those bizarre social situations one nearly never finds
themselves in and the conventions are not well delineated and so
things can get weird.
Spring Break – Ditching My Friend
For
spring break my girlfriend and her best friend had planned a camping
trip to southern Utah to a semi-secret little spot by the name of Red
Cliffs. By semi-secret I mean there is a forty place national park
camping ground with running water and toilets. Real undergroundstuff, like Cat Stevens. The problem was that there was room for 10
people in two cars and those spots were taken. The rub there was that
my friend Cole was left out. Cole had a bizarre existence for a high
schooler, he worked as a baker at a local shop and had to start work
at godforsaken-o'clock in the anti-meridian. The upside of this was
that he had to head home for bed at a very early time on nights
before work and he was going to have to work during spring break.
Meaning that he couldn't have come if he was invited which I was not
at liberty to do any way because it was not my trip and there was no
room. I choose not to discuss that fact with him and opted instead to
try to avoid him for the week running up to spring break even though
we had two classes together. I don't really know why I wanted to
avoid the subject coming up but then again I am a big fan of ignoring
things an hoping it goes away eventually. I could tell Cole was mad
and that his feel-bads were hurt that he was getting ditched but I
just passed him in the hall finding something else to look at or
someone to talk with to pretend I couldn't see him and have to deal
with it. Real stand up guy right?
All Alone At Wrestling Recognition Night
Even
though I've been disqualified from extracurricular activities,
including wrestling, I had been on the varsity team so they invited
me to senior recognition nigh. It was an event held in the gym where
we were all getting some made up award, even and especially if we
weren't very good. The fact of the matter was that most of us weren't
very good, we were terrible so there was no shortage of creativity in
finding some exotic thing to praise and put on a plaque. I told my
parents about this Wednesday night activity weeks in advance so they
can come support me in my moment of wrestling glory. When the night
came they had both forgotten, made other plans or something. Long
story short - I go to wrestling recognition night alone with my
girlfriend. After a speech from the coach about how great we were
they called everybody up on the mat to receive their awards. They
said the biggest contributor to a kid's success, the main thing, is
always the sacrifice their parents have made. Then the coach went on
to talk about the unsung glory of moms bringing kids to wrestling and
washing their clothes and making sure they were taken care of and how
that leads to their success. All the while I stood out there the only
kid out of the 12 seniors without a parent. It was humiliating and
embarrassing that I was the only guy that was stand out there alone
because my parents were too busy to support me. I was obviously
squirmy and self-conscious when we were to give the flowers that the
coaches had supplied for us to our mom as a tribute of gratitude for
all the hard work they put into our success. My friend Quin's mom was
there and alone and rescued me by coming to stand me with her son and
she got to roses out of it. They gave me an award for most improved
wrestler. Which is an old chestnut of the backhanded compliment
award. You did suck worse, but now you don't suck as much, hooray! I
collected my little plaque and collected my girlfriend and I went
home. I can't really remember what my parents were doing at night, I
think it had to do with my dad working and my mom was at a church
activity. Either way, we could definitely say that my success or
failure in wrestling could not be chalked up to the unending devotion
and dedication of my doting parents.
I Am a Funeral Hypocrite
If
you remember back, I told you about a kid who died the day of prom,
a kid that I had no emotional attachment to but that I pretended to
so that I didn't ruin the mood that I thought might get me kissing.
You know? because I'm a heartless jerk. Well brace yourself it gets
more jerk-like and more heartless if you continue to read, so if you
had an unreasonably high expectation of my strong moral fiber look
away now before it gets worse. I will let you know when you can look
back and thus leave your high opinion of me unblemished. The funeral
for this guy was the next Friday, the day after I got kissed
actually, and I wanted to go because everyone who was anyone was
going. They would cry and they would hug girls and they would get
sweet kisses from their girlfriends. My friend Cole who is burdened
with a sense of authenticity about his character was very skeptical
about a bunch of posers going to pretend they were sad for a kid they
didn't even like in real life. While I was talking to Cole I agreed
with him and said there's no way I'd go. I didn't know him and I
didn't care about him so why should I go it would be cheap, right?
But then when my girlfriend said she was going I forgot all about my
strong convictions and emotional authenticity and loaded up and went.
My friend Cole was pretty disappointed. When I was there and
listening to his family and friends talk about what a great guy he
was and how it was so sad and all those things I felt nothing. My
girlfriend was crying so I did the great old fake-out - looked sad
and then put my hands on my face and rubbed my eyes a little so to
look like I might've been crying. If this seems like an insanely
shallow thing to do that is because it was. After the service for the
kid that I didn't care about in any genuine sense, but saw as an
opportunity for my personal gain I did get some nice hugs and some
sad looks and that night, some more kisses. I have done lots of
crappy and shallow things in my life but for some reason this
disingenuous sorrow for the dead stuck in my mind is a particularly
turd-ish thing to have done. Cole let me know it was a particularly
turd-ish thing to do when I went back to school and saw him. That's
what friends, good friends, are for. They will not lie and tell you
everything is good when something is bad. If you have been looking
away you can look back again, I'm done saying all the crappy things
about my personality, until tomorrow.
A Kiss at Last
After
my abortive attempt at making the kissing after prom I didn't know
exactly where I stood with my would-be girlfriend but when I talked
to her the next day she was as warm and friendly as ever maybe even
more so. It was confusing, and not in a good way. She had told me
that the reason she didn't want to kiss me a prom was that she had
never kissed someone on the lips before and she was too nervous. I
said that was okay, but I did not think it was okay. I was thinking
how bad could it be? She did get significantly more cuddly and we
spent a lot of nights from prom till the next Thursday cuddling and
hanging out. The Thursday after prom I was at her house after her
parents eight o'clock bedtime. We were downstairs watching TV of some
sort and when that ended she turned off the TV and turned out the
lights and sat next to me in the dark. She held my hand and then
leaned in really close until her warm sweet breath was on me in the
dark. Like the fortunate hiker who stumbles upon a deer in the
meadow, I held completely still, barely breathing and trying to not
spook her and ruin the magic. She started kissing my neck, then my
ear, and when she had worked up the courage she kissed me full on the
lips. I was torn on my opinion of our first kiss, it was not the most
technically sound kiss I had ever encountered, but it was passionate
and intense and she was beautiful and I was in love. We kissed a
little more in the dark basement not quite under her sleeping parents
but pretty close. I had kissed lots of girls before but I had never
felt such a sense of accomplishment and exhilaration as I did walking
the four blocks home that night. I mumbled elated congratulations to
myself while I made goofy celebratory fist pumps and 'heck-yeah'
faces as I bad-A strutted back to my house. It took a while to get
to the kiss, and it was a little sloppy and moist when I did, but it
was the best kiss I had ever earned. That night I was all redemption
and forgotten failures. I had trouble falling asleep and I laid on my
bed in my darkened and considered how great the world and everything
in it was.
Matt and I Debate and No One Cares
The
story of my would-be girlfriend and I cools off for a couple of
weeks, so to fill the time while we wait for more news on that front
I will tell you about some other stuff that happened. When I went
back to school after having been banned from everything I was still
in the debate class I just couldn't participate in extracurricular
activities. One day the debate coach from a neighboring school
dropped in to see how we were doing things, as he wanted to learn how
to win debate competitions like our coach had done. My coach offered
to send me and my little brother over to his class at a high school
in a town a few miles away to have a live Lincoln Douglas debate and
to illustrate for the children what one might see in the heat of fake
word fighting so they would not be scared. It was exciting because I
had in my mind the idea that somebody actually cared about Lincoln
Douglas debate. Here's a spoiler: high school children as a rule do
not care that much about formal debate - except for dorks, geeks, and
nerds, and who cares what those guys like, right? My coach told him
that I had won lots of tournaments but that my style was a bit
convoluted and esoteric. I was not really sure what esoteric meant
but it sounded like a compliment to my not insubstantial powers of
smart-being. My brother and I drove over to the neighboring high
school and we set up a 35 min. or so debate. I cannot over emphasize
how blindingly boring debate is anyone who is not a debater. A speech
class usually has mostly people who are not that interested the class
per se, they just heard it was an easy 'A' if you liked to
talk. This class was no exception. There were about 40 kids who were
there to listen to my brother and I debate the resolution that
individual liberty was more important than societal good. Oh, now
that's a juicy one. As I relate this story of how badly we bombed
this gig I got a little debate twinge and wanted to start writing a
quick couple of notes on the resolution, it is like nerd alcoholism
you are never cured just in remission. By the end of my first speech,
which was 7 min. long, we had lost the room. The teacher kept asking
people to quiet down and quit talking but that wasn't doing too much
to maintain order. My brother got up for cross-examination and
people were openly talking to each other, then he gave his speech and
I cross-examined him. I had to get up and give another speech and at
this point anyone who's ever lost a room in any sort of public
performance knows the agony of pressing through and finishing when
you are being actively ignored. We did push on through and then the
class was supposed to ask us questions, no one did. One girl said she
didn't know why we were there. You and I both sister, you and I both.
They voted on the winner and most likely because I had spoken last
they said I won. This was not the most horrible thing that ever
happened to me in my life but I had somehow gotten into some
inexplicable macho posturing about being a good debater and this did
put in perspective how exactly bad-A I was for being a debate super
Amadeus. Not bad-A at all that's about how bad-A I was.
Prom - I Go For Kissing
Now
there, I've been caught lying and repented now I will go back to the
story now. After we finished up at the courthouse, where the prom was
being held, all done crying over dead peers and dancing a little we
headed back to a friend's house; or more accurately a friend of a
friend's house. At that time he had the fanciest house I had ever
seen, by today's standards it's pretty average, anyway we were there
under the pretense of watching a movie. When we got there my date and
I changed back into more casual clothing and I sat close to her on
the couch hoping we would get into some hand holding or something
more. Other couples were engaging in various stages of cuddling and
kissing and heading off to more private venues. I was starting to get
pretty jealous when our host and his date, a very cute girl, headed
back to his bedroom for some mutual respect. . .probably. After a
couple of hours the movie wrapped up and we decided it was time to go
home so I drove my date the whole doing that junior high kind of
thing where I put my hand on the seat in between us hoping that she
would meet me half way and hold it. I had been pretty exclusive with
her, hanging out every night, doing stuff, and going on several
dates, for about two months which to my young still forming mind
seem like an eternity. I was more used to getting right down to
business on day one, or date two, or in extreme situations date
three. She had been a harder nut to crack. We pulled up in my little
white truck in front of her house and I turned off the engine. I
unbuckled my seat belt and turned towards her and asked if she wanted
me to walk her to the door she said 'no', pretty firmly. I talked to
her for bit about what we did and what other people did and if she
had a good time and what she thought about the dead kid. She had her
hand on the door handle and was looking towards her door which is a
universal symbol for dates being over so I told her that I had a
really good time put my arm close to where I could gather her in
around her waist and tried to close the distance for little smoochy
smooch. My vinyl seats made her next move preternaturally quick as
she spun on her butt and rotated her knee up and into my chest to
block me from the impending kiss. She said, 'No.' In the firm manner
one uses to address a dog that is about to poop where he mustn't. It
was absolutely humiliating and much beyond salvageable. She said that
she was sorry but that she didn't want to kiss me. She opened the
door and closed the distance to her house rather quickly. I stayed
there in the dark car for a moment, confused and facing a kiss-less
existential crisis. I decided that if I was going to have a pity
party I should do it on the way home. The problem was I only lived a
few blocks away and that didn't give much time for an angsty
self-pitying rage cry at my failure, at the idea that kids could die,
and at the confusion I felt about the girl who as far as I could tell
I was in love with. I tried pulling it together before I went in –
I cursed myself, and my abortive attempt at kissing, and the fates,
and the gods and the universe. I pounded the steering wheel, dried my
tears, and went in to tell my mom what a great night I had. When she
asked why I'd been crying I told her that a boy I knew from school
had died that night. I wasn't really crying about him but the idea of
youth snuffed out and love unrequited but it seemed like too much to
say and I was tired.
Prom - Cole Caught Me Lying
My
good friend and faithful blog follower Cole noticed that I was lying
about what I did at prom. He reminded me that my trip to the zoo was
at another date and at prom he went on the daytime date with me
before we went out to dinner where I started telling the truth again.
What we really did was more disastrous than not finding the zoo.
Along with Cole and our dates we went out with my little brother his
friend's and dates. What we decided to do was a classic of buying
ourselves a gift that we knew we would enjoy. We went to an indoor
paintball arena. This was a poor idea because we drastically
misjudged our dates pain tolerance and interest in simulating war.
Very early on most of the girls had enough and were sitting around
pissed off and fidgeting in the staging area while the remaining
hardcore chicks and the guys played on to use up our already paid for
paint balls. Most of us had welts and bruises from where we had been
hit but for the boys it made little difference because at the dance
that night we would be wearing wrist and ankle length clothing. The
girls would be much more exposed and they were really getting pretty
mad about what would show that night when they were dressed up as
fancy as they had in their whole lives. One girl, I want to remember
it was my little brothers date but I may need to be fact checked on
that as well, had been shot under the mask and she had a bloody
bruised vicious looking welt right up on her face. I had remembered
that my date was mad about something before dinner and this was what
it was not that not finding the zoo thing. Not finding the zoo did
happen exactly like I said but it was another night.
Prom – A Kid Dies and Ruins the Mood
>By
the time we got to the prom and went down for our little walk on the
promenade, got the pictures taken and started dancing my date had
calmed down from the slight of me wanting her to eat dinner. Nobody
was really doing because it is hard to do and still look amazing in
really nice clothes. Also you can dance only minimally in really nice
clothes especially because they are rentals and I at least was nearly
frightened senseless at the thought of losing my deposit. We did
dance a little and stood around talking people passing time when
somebody announced over the PA system that a kid our age had died. He
was not really a friend of anyone in the group but we did all know
him. He was a nice but effeminate guy that I had teased a bit about
being gay and I think most guys had joked about him being gay. Unless
he was running deep cover he actually wasn't gay and had been out
snowmobiling with his date before prom. While they were riding they
had gone off into a ravine or off a cliff or something and he broke
his neck and died instantly his date was in bad shape too but she was
from another town and no one knew her. I was not actually that torn
up about this dying business, I had not known the kid really well, I
had one class with him as a sophomore and I had been in on a large
group date with him in the party. I was sad in a general sense of
'that's too bad somebody my age died' but I honestly wasn't
personally affected. All the girls at the prom started crying though,
wailing and needing hugs. This would normally please me as it would
seem like a way to get some physical contact with girls but these
were decidedly unsexy hugs, slobbering and goobery from crying. I
was afraid, in my spectacularly self-centered way, that I was losing
my chance here for a little making out. That was the truth, a kid he
just died - snuffed out in the prime of youth and I only considered
whether that would affect my chances at getting a little kiss action.
Surprisingly that's not the least and disingenuous thing I ever did
concerning this kid actually; but that is a story I will have to get
to. The mood of the prom had come down quite a bit and we left early
to change back into regular clothes and hang out at a friend's house
and while my date would try to watch a movie and I would try and
score some sweet lovin'.
Prom – Tastes Fishy
For the dinner date portion of our evening we went to the nicest
restaurant that was available within 20 miles and was also in our
price range. It was a swank little steakhouse by the name of Carvers
it has since gone out of business in that location largely because of
their high prices and shady business practices which I will enumerate
straight away. I opened the menu and steadied myself as I started
noticing the prices and got a little panicked because I didn't know
that appetizers cost $10 and that dinners cost $30. I sat back and
nodded approvingly while trying to find the least expensive thing for
myself and endure the brunt of my dates order. I was hoping against
hoping that I had enough brought enough cash to cover the meal. she
started up by ordering a stuffed portobello mushroom appetizer of
which she took one bite of and decided it tasted like human fleash,
gagged a little, hurried for a cleansing sip of soda and pushed
aside. Well there was a quick $10 experiment that I'll never get
back. When we're going over the entrée menu she asked if the
swordfish was very fishy, because she hated fish and the waiter
assured her the swordfish was not a very fishy fish and she would
probably like it. I thought for $24 she better like it. Anyway, it
may come to little surprise to those of you who were able to guess
from the 'fish' half of the name swordfish that it, brace yourself,
tasted like fish. This also got a single nibble, a gag and a quick
trip to the sanctifying flavor of Pepsi cola. I was getting pretty
irritated about laying out $40 now for her meal which she done
nothing with but taste, gag and drink a soda. I ate mine all the way
down to the glazing, and then ate hers all the way down to the ground
including the human flesh flavored portobello appetizer. No wonder
they went out of business selling swordfish that, of all things,
tasted exactly like fish.We headed out to go to the dance and as we
left the restaurant which just cost me $90 for the two of us to not
eat dinner she informed me that she was starving to death needed to
stop at Wendy's to get kids meal. She got a chicken nugget kids meal
and some ketchup the put on the chicken nuggets and said that was the
best thing in the world. I pointed out there was a way we could have
gotten them and saved $90. Or, with a little bit of deduction,
realized that the swordfish would taste like fish. This made her very
defensive and she was in a huff for about an hour as we drove to the
site of the prom. I guess the important part was the experience and
what price can you put on the experience of turning your nose up and
fate gagging at dinner?
Prom - The Zoo is Hard to Find
My
plan for prom was to go out to someplace far away in the big city to
impress my date with my awesome knowledge of the landscape and my
world wise savoir-faire in providing exotic romantic experiences. To
that end I planed to go to visit the zoo. Hey, kids love the zoo and
in the eyes of the law we were still technically kids. The zoo
closest to where we lived was sort of like a prison for animals. If
you like seeing big cats pacing in a cell made of cement blocks, sad
and doing the cat equivalent of dragging a cup against the bars then
you were in for a treat - a real treat. I looked up the directions of
how to get there but in the dark ages of middle 90's the GPS was not
readily available, the cell phone was for yuppies in movies and the
internet was basically useless. I wrote down the directions which,
like all directions, assumed that I would stay on the path set out
and not make wrong turns rendering them useless. The morning of prom
I went and picked up my date, drove up to the big city, got off the
right exit, got off the second right exit and then proceeded to miss
the zoo completely. I then tried again and then I tried again and my
date was getting pretty evidently cranky with me for not knowing my
way and I was trying to pretend like I was almost there and this
little snafu would be shortly remedied. I stopped and asked
directions and the guy at the gas station gave me directions which I
tried following and still couldn't find it. I stopped another place
for directions and the guy didn't speak English and I got the wrong
directions as well either by misunderstanding or simply because that
guy hated teenagers looking for the zoo. By the time I had not found
the zoo this time we'd been driving for about 2 1/2 hours not gettign
there and the vibe was not the charming hand-holdy pre-kissing one I
had hoped to cultivate. I know it's pretty impressive to a date when
you get lost and this was no exception. I eventually conceded that we
didn't have much time left in order to make it back get changed and
meet our group for dinner, so we we stopped at a Subway restaurant,
ate lunch and drove home in a bit of a crank. Pretty slick.
Prom – I Make My Move Early
I
thought that the prom, with its literary and cinematographic
reputation for being the time of great sexual transition in a young
man's life would be a great time to get my first kiss from my
girlfriend. To that end I made some rather extensive plans to ask her
out, and thus stake my claim, well before the time generally
considered reasonable. Generally, 2 to 3 weeks before a dance was
sufficient time to ensure that you would have a date that wasn't
barrel scrapings. Not that everything you find when you are scraping
the barrel is necessarily barrel scrapings per se it is just
there is a good chance that is what you find when you wait till all
of the good dibs have been dibed. Even with two weeks maybe you
didn't get the particular date you wanted first go, but then you
still had some built-in buffer before you may be on the verge of
beginning to have to scrape barrel where you would find whomever of
God's precious daughters that were left over. The logic is sound. To
avoid any confusion about who was who's date I made my move about
eight weeks early. I got my little arts and crafts project together,
which was the modus operandi for inviting people to a dance
with you at my high school. I think it had something to do with
putting secret message in an Oreo and putting lots of decoy Oreos
into a jar, or that could of been the way that she answered me with a
similarly mandated arts and crafts project. Either way she said yes
and she told me a couple times running up to the big day that other
people had asked her if she had been asked already, boys and girls
included, and they were all very surprised that she been snatched up
so much in advance. I was not ashamed that I was the earliest of iron
striking birds and no-looky leapers, I got what I came for and I made
sure of that. I went to work making plans with other friends about
the required day-time activity and how we would not be meeting up
with them until dinner. I was planning a romantic date for two and
glommers on need not apply. This, combined with my woeful lack of
direction in big cities turned out to be a bit of a mistake by which
I mean it was a major cluster mess.
Test-Tacular
On
our drive up to the town where the test was being held our crazy
friend Ray sang that Denny's jingle that goes, '$1.99? are you out of
your mind?” theme song for the grand slam breakfast probably around
two or three hundred times. It was pretty awesome the first 10 times
and then started to pass over into a tedious mantra that hung heavy
on un-slept nerves. We got to Denny's with the rest the rejects and
social misfits that show up at four o'clock in the morning and
ordered ourselves a round of grand slam breakfasts which I believe I
paid for because I was the only one who had any money. When we
finished up our delicious, nutritious and fortifying brain food -
hotcakes, two eggs and two strips of bacon. We showed up at the
college where the test was being held to get signed in. At this point
I was running on adrenaline and a high amount of vibration was coming
from my ears, or maybe my brain or the little bit of gushy stuff
between the ears and the brain. Sorry to get you side tracked on a
bunch of medical mambo-jumbo but for those in the know that kind of
stuff is interesting. I got my test books and my room assignment and
waited to see what was on an ACT test it turned out it was a lost
knowledge party of things I had did knew.. . ago, except for a
concept called radians which I guess we had not had time to cover in
geometry class. I felt pretty strong going into the reading section
when the proctor wrote the wrong time on the board so when I looked
up from reading the first of five sections it appeared that I only
had 20 of the remaining 60 minutes. I was confused at how I took so
much time reading one section of two pages and answering the
questions. I panicked and I started reading at a reckless pace to get
the other four down in the next 20 min. If you had done as well on
the math part as me you know that is roughly 5 minutes apiece, carry
the radians by the square root of the derivative. I got all done and
everybody was looking around when the proctor glanced up to see why
everybody was restless when we had an hour left to go. He looked at
the board and realized he'd put the wrong finishing time apologized
and corrected it. I was in a tough spot because now I still didn't
have enough time to reread and do them right so I settled for an in
depth review. I felt like I had done pretty good for not sleeping all
night watching the stupid Dazed and Confused and eating
Denny's for breakfast and also being cheated out of a reasonable
pacing time on the reading section. I got a 32 out of up possible
36, well above the mean, or the median, or the radians and I am still
not sure what those words mean.
ACT Prep
The
ACT is a testing right of passage for all those graduating seniors
who want to go on to college and even for those who don't want to go
to college but who have parents who want them to go to college. I did
want to go to college and I needed an academic scholarship as well as
other scholarships so that I could go to school for free. In light of
that urgent need I did absolutely nothing to prepare myself to take
the test. The Friday night before the Saturday test I went out with a
couple of my friends, stayed up all night, met some girls, tried
score some weed and ate at Denny's. That had not been the plan at the
start of the night. There were four of us who had to take a test the
next day so we decided to all sleep over a one guy's house and then
next morning we get up and go to the test together and make sure
nobody missed their ride. What actually happened was that we loaded
up and went the next town over to “drag main”. That is a game
where a bunch of hillbillies go on Friday and Saturday nights who had
nothing to do basically drive up and down the street trying to find
girls. These mythical girls who for some reason want to be picked up
off Main Street and then go 'hook up' were hard to find. This plan
worked almost exactly never. It was on the night when it was a
terrible time to try that it did. After an hour or so of fruitless
driving and flirting we came alongside a group of girls who asked us
if we had cigarettes, we did not have cigarettes but they said we
looked cute so they asked us to follow them. Where they wanted us to
follow them was over to police officers house whose son sold
marijuana. There plan was for us to buy them some weed but we
declined the offer and just followed them back to their house and
Springville. It was a ratty little place and when we walked in one of
the girls mom's asked if we had any G-D weed. We had not so they
didn't even bother to ask our names and we were treated as
ambivalently as is humanly possible. We were naive and thought that
there was still maybe a chance to get some making out this evening
and so we stayed and watched that golden oldie of stoner
cinematography the godawful Dazed and Confused. For
the record, that is the stupidest movie in the history of stupid
movies and only potheads enjoy it. They could actually use quotes
from that and Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a quick screen
drug test. That and face tattoos. We finish up the movie at about two
o'clock in the morning and started to realize we were not going to
score any sweet kissing action this night. That is when we start
thinking that if we drove back home, and then get to bed it will be
three or four in the morning not leaving much time before we had to
wake up two hours later to be the testing site at seven o'clock. The
only practical option at this point was to stay up all night, eat
dinner/breakfast at Denny's and then go to the test. See? Completely
logical.
I Run Over a Hillbilly Sports Car
In
the winter time when there were over night snowstorms the kids would
arrive at school before the snowplows could clear the lines and the
parking would be a little catch-as-catch can. The lines would be
chaotic and winding like a parking microcosm of the Lord of the
Flies. One morning in a soup of fog and drizzle I was driving our
huge truck, a full sized truck with a king cab and full bed to
school. The experience is probably most similar to piloting one of
those great big barges down the Mississippi and into a small estuary
to deliver a payload of one slightly tardy young man to school. I was
actually quite a bit late to school and so there was already a
sizable a huge tangle of cars this way and that parked at odd angles.
The massive truck with sight obscuring height and topper had the side
windows fog a little bit.
 |
| My weapon, with great truck comes great responsibility and I failed. |
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| Why was it shaped that way if it didn't want it? |
I Accidentally Ambush Poop in the Fake Governor's Mansion
One
of the perks of having been associated with student government for so
long was that I got to make some pretty influential friends. When
the student body president and I had gone to Freedom Academy we met
the governor's son. He was pretty cool guy so that winter when he
invited us over to his house for a party at the governor's mansion we
headed right up. It wasn't the real governor's mansion because the
real governor's mansion burned down sometime earlier that year and
they were building them a new one. So the first family of Utah was
slumming it in a normal huge house instead. At the party we played
basketball in the backyard, hung out downstairs talking and being
cool. I was there with my girlfriend, one of my best friends, the
student body president, and some really rich kids. Down where we were
from a rich kid would be considered middle class everywhere else. At
this party we were hanging out with kids whose families had hundreds
of millions of dollars. They were still pretty cool which was in
stark contrast to everything I had been taught in
underdog-beating-rich-kids-movies. My girlfriend was hitting it off
pretty well with that a girl from Park City whose dad was in the oil
business. I saw my opportunity to sneak off and address the urgent
call of nature I was battling at the moment. I wandered away and I
found the most secluded bathroom in the basement of the governor's
mansion. I checked both ways in the abandoned hall and then I walked
in. I turned on the fan, turned on the faucet and even opened a
window to ensure that I was pooping in absolute stealth mode. When I
wrapped up my business and readied for a clean escape I lowered the
lid went to flush when I noticed a quite big sign that been obscured
by the raised lid: 'This toilet is out of order - please do not use.'
Whoops. I was in a panic. I got some more toilet paper and tried to
camouflage the payload and then I washed my hands, turn off the light
and fan. I slowly opened the door and poked my head out to make sure
the hall was abandoned and then sneaked out - super stealth mode. I
had left them an ample souvenir and did not want to be associated
with that particular crime. I snuck down the hall and then went
upstairs before I came back downstairs as to cover my tracks and
double back to throw any trackers off the scent not unlike a crafty
raccoon. When I was going up the stairs I passed the governor and his
wife who just returned from a night out. They stopped and introduced
themselves to me and shook my hand. It felt awkward to be glad
handing the political royalty of Utah on a stairwell literally
seconds after I had desecrated their malfunctioning downstairs
restroom but politicians politic and I would sooner stop a bird from
singing then to deny a man in the charisma business the chance to
press the flesh. I got upstairs and milled around for long enough to
throw everybody off and then came back downstairs. We spent the rest
the night chatting and hanging out and playing games. Sometime around
one o'clock in the morning somebody went back into that downstairs
bathroom and saw what I had done and then complained loudly about
what they had found in the broken toilet. I acted shocked that
anybody would be that rude and I never confessed to anybody until
much later when I could share this funny story about the time that I
had left in ambush poop at the ersatz governor's house. All things
considered that is a pretty awesome thing to have done in my life.
Less Incentive Than Ever
Now that I'd been kicked off anything I ever loved I had less incentive than ever to come to school. From that time on I found out what I needed to do to graduate, which is very little at that point, and then I did that and not a weasel’s twitch more. I did have one little hitch with the physical education department because I I had neglected that area of my education in favor of math and science classes. I was not and I am not sorry. Besides that I spent all of my time slacking off, driving up the Canyon going rock climbing, hanging out at someone's house or just not going to school. I would come to school on the days that we had tests and pass the test. I would do the minimum homework when it was necessary and I wrote all of my reports and papers the day they were assigned so they were done and ready. At that point I had not decided which college I should attend until I noticed that my girlfriend was carrying around a lot information from Dixie college. I was thinking that if I was going to keep dating her and not have to start over with a different girlfriend or have her go off and play kissy face with some strange man then I better go there too. I got some application papers for Dixie and I applied for a leadership scholarship because as far as they knew I was on student Council. I was interviewed and re-interviewed and they decided I should be an official representative of Dixie college. I got an academic scholarship as well because they saw that I had such a good GPA excluding the one 'F' that they didn't know about because I had submitted the grades up to that point. This meant that I would be going to college for free except for my housing and food. I was set for the fall with my housing reservation and deposit paid an my scholarships in place. I really only had to graduate, which was a requirement for each and every one of my plans, and I would be set.
Getting Caught - Who is the Maestro
The next Monday at school when a usurper was doing the announcements and was reading the list of regional debate winners that my teacher had written he read off the nickname my coach had not been able to leave off the list for the pride of winning regional. The code-name only stymied the kid for a moment as he tried to remember where he had heard that nick name before. It was me a nickname I got from my best friend that he gotten from his best friend's dad 'The Maestro'. I liked the pretentious sound of it, and I like so many want to write my own reviews and build my own myth so I had written on several of my things. This kid had somehow remembered that and sat for a second on air and contemplated who 'The Maestro' was. He remembered and said he was certain that it was Nate that was the Maestro and that I had won first place at debate regional. Watching this slow train wreck develop on live TV was when I realized that would not be going to the state debate tournament. In less than a minute my debate teacher had traveled the distance from the point furthest from, which was where his classroom was to the point furthest to, which was of the classroom I was in currently. He looked in the door and motioned me out into the hall. I said I knew he would be in big trouble if they knew I went with his blessing and we agreed that the rouge and deceitful student was the best way to play this for both of our sake's This ad hoc strategy meeting took less than twenty seconds and he hustled out the back glass double doors of the annex building where I seemed fated to receive all of my bad news that year. I was sad that I was not going to go to state debate but I thought it was fair for me to take the blame because the blame was mine and he had already gone way too far out for my benefit anyway. Ten seconds after he had cleared the doors and even before I was back in class the vice principal was coming through the opposite set of double doors towards me asking what exactly in the blue hell I had been up to going to regional debate when I knew I was ineligible for all extra curricular activity. I told him that I signed up for it before I ineligible so I thought I was still allowed to go. Pro-tip: This was a lie. I did know that I wasn't supposed to go but I wasn't sorry. I told him that I didn't ride the bus and that I had lied to by debate coach telling him I had been cleared to compete. Thankfully that got my coach off the hook and I was disciplined no more than I already had been. What I was sorry about is that it wouldn't get to go compete and win state debate, but then again I think we are all comfortable with the probability that it was going to win anyway so that should be enough right? That is not enough.
Debate Regional
Unlike many of my other teachers, my debate coach was not willing to let a little bit of administrative ineligibility prevent me from winning him glory. To this end he decided not to check to see if I was eligible to compete in the region debate. I wasn't, in point of fact, eligible and we both knew it but we both wanted to win region debate and up until that point in my senior year I had not lost a single round of Lincoln Douglas debate. In the weeks leading up to in the day of regional debate I kept everything pretty hush-hush, I didn't sign up officially - he signed me up on the back end as late entrant so my name wouldn't appear on the list the administrators would check. I drove my own car and when I was there I stayed a bit apart so as to minimize my exposure to blabbery. The debating however, was loud and proud and it went really well. I uncorked debate hell and mopped the floor the bodies the vanquished, this is a debate style rhetorical flourish in the witch I inexplicably describe the results of word fighting in martial terms to sound more interesting to the non-debater. When all was done and all was said I had won all six of my regional debate rounds placed first in region and qualified myself for the state tournament should be happening in two weeks. It was pretty awesome and everybody on the team was congratulating me and expressing their excitement and confidence in my easy road to the state championship. I had forgotten for a bit that I was a fugitive from justice and I celebrated with my debate friends. It was my last good day in high school debate as my ineligibility soon caught up with me but it was not a bad way to go out unvanquished, celebrated and loved.
No More Announcements
One
of the most painful things about being kicked out of all my
extracurricular activities but is no longer welcome to do the morning
announcements. I liked the attention I got from doing the
announcements, I thought that I was a pretty funny guy and that
people enjoyed my off beat and quirky brand of hijinks. I even had
brainwashed myself into thinking that I was somewhat of a school
touchstone and treasure. I think what hurt the most was finding out
that nobody even noticed that I was not on anymore. I would mention
that I had been kicked off and they would suddenly realize that I had
been on the announcements. I had been off among and nobody had even
cared . It popped my little fantasy that I had in my mind of the
pivotal nature of ,my role in the school's daily routine and it
turned out everyone just tuned me out and waited for it to be over. I
regretted all of the effort, planning and anxiety about doing well
and being funny that went into producing good show and felt a little
hollow. I was hoping for popular revolt and the students to demand
that I be reinstated - what I got was crickets. Not exactly be
crumbled feet of Ozymandias it for a 17-year-old it was close enough.
At that rate I might find out that my angsty teen poetry was banal
and not interesting to anybody who didn't have some interest in not
insulting me personally.
My Friends Vote and I Am Off
My failing grade meant that I was automatically disqualified for wrestling and I couldn’t even go back to practice. Debate was another issue which I'll cover later. Student government had an interesting conundrum because the instructor was really into us making the decisions so he could have more free time. I went in and told him that I wasn't eligible and the instructor said that somebody had been kicked out of student council about six years ago when a girl was kicked off for getting pregnant. I wasn't really that pregnant so I didn't really need to be kicked off in his opinion but I should be suspended until I resolved my grades and truancy. He left it to my contemporaries in the executive student council to decide if I should be banished or probated. They wanted to have the meeting where they decided on my fate to be in a private area of the school but the only place available to us was a eight by eight janitors closet which was also full of vacuums and mops. When you make do, you make do. We went inside and closed closet doors the six of us intimately close discussed the two options. I fully expected that my two good friends on the counsel would vote for me to be suspended and my two less than good friends would vote against me and it would be up to who I considered my best friend on the counsel to break the tie. I did have the feeling that with his very dedicated sense of law and order and the rule of law he was probably going to vote against me. We finished up our discussion of the options and went around the over close room and my two friends voted for me as I thought they would. The other two voted against suspension. Then it was the student body president's turn he was obviously pained as he told me that he thought that I had known what the requirements for my job were and I had not done those things so he had to vote for me to be kicked off the counsel entirely. I had thought that was how it would go but I still broke down crying piteously for myself and my situation and the small amount of blame I could put on the English teacher. They all gave me hugs and told me they were sorry and then left me in there to finish my crying and to wallow in my self-pity for a little while. When I had finished up with having a sad and made my little mumbling curses and some angry outbursts befitting a teenage angst party, I dried my eyes the best I could. I opened the door to make sure the coast was clear and headed out of the annex building where we had out meeting. I ran straight out to the parking lot to my car and I drove home because if nothing else I am the sort of person who when confronted with problems in my life runs away far away, as fast as I can
My Slacking Catches Up
I
may have mentioned that I was an irresponsible slacker who cut class
and didn't repent. If for some reason I omitted these facts then that
is another thing I screwed up. I had known the whole time that
wrestling, debate and my seat on student council were at stake but I
felt like I could just slack off and then at the last possible moment
swing in and repair the damage in a flurry of charm and hard work
like I had done hundreds of times before in my educational career. It
would be touch and go but I would make it work. This time though I
had burned the bridge past the tipping point and I was unable to
rebuild. The first day back from the holiday break I ran into my
wrestling coach who asked if I would be at practice after school. I
told him I would be, he said he hadn't been sure because he just
picked up a list of ineligible students and I was on it. My stomach
twiddled and rippled as my body went cold and my mind raced. He told
me he hoped that I could work it out because I had shown so much
promise and had improved so much in such a little time that he hoped
I would be ready to participate in the regional tournament in a
couple of weeks. I told him I would get it straitened out and I went
to my locker and then right back to the office to see what the story
was. I knew that I had received several 'U' for unsatisfactory grades
in citizenship based on my roughly 50% attendance in school. Those
were no big deal I could work them off in detention or by paying a
fine. What I hadn't counted on was that I was on the ineligible list
because I had failed a class. I wasn't aware that I had failed AP
English because I had turned in every essay on time and then the
essays as a packet at the end of the semester. The grade should have
been a 'B' or so. I went to talk to my AP English teacher who didn't
like me much because we had argued about her qualifications to render
judgment about what symbolism in stories represented. I went to her
class that was about to start and I asked why she had failed me and
she said it was because I had not turned in my essays at the end of
term. I absolutely had. What was worse was that she had individually
graded each essay and then required the whole portfolio to be
submitted at once at midterm and then at the end of the semester to
receive our final grades. I pointed out that I had turned it in and
she said she hadn’t seen it. I reminded her of all of the
individual essays of mine she had graded and she said that without
the portfolio she couldn't remember and she had given me a 0 and now
it was too late to find it and turn it in because the semester was
over. I knew she had the authority to change the grade because the
vice-principle had just told me that was the only way I could be
reinstated to all of my extra curricular activities. She told me I
had to leave because class was starting and she needed to teach. I
ran back to my ocker and looked through my stuff and found the essays
in the portfolio and felt relived that it had her mark on every essay
and on the outside of the folder so I would just show her that and
she would fix it up. I went into her class as she was heading out for
lunch and showed her the folder with the finished and graded
assignments that would save my bacon and she said that I should have
turned it in on time that now it was too late and unfair to give me a
passing grade for late work. I lost my cool and yelled at her that it
was not late work that she must have made a mistake that she had
written scores on every on time essay in the bunch and that I had
received the portfolio back from her. She said she never received it
and walked out. I sat down in her classroom and cried because she
could save me, and justly so the work was there and graded by her,
but she wanted to watch me burn. I cried at all my lost opportunities
and I cried because if I would have come to class and towed the line
and followed up she would have been left without recourse and I would
have passed and would still do morning announcements, and wrestled,
and debated, and counseled the students. I wallowed there in self
pity and blind teenage angst hating that woman more than I had ever
hated anyone. I waited for a lull in hallway traffic and because her
classroom was right near an outside entrance I made my way undetected
out the doors and around the corner and snuck to my car without
anyone mentioning my tear stained and puffy face.
New Years Party is Short a Girl or All
On
New Years Eve one of my penumbric friends who was often doing the
same stuff as me, but never just me and him, was having a party. We
got along okay it just was never a thought to hang out without
someone else brokering the deal. Anyway the plan was to have a
no-parent wild-man party with lots of non-alcoholic beverages and
lots of ladies. The root beer and cream soda was not hard to come by
because they sell that to just anyone. We bought a case of IBC root
brew and a case of IBC cream soda.
Then I started throwing the invite
the girls net pretty wide. I hit up some ladies in the hall, called
old girlfriends, told people to tell people and thought that ought to
do it guest wise. That night we got the brews on ice had a couple to
make sure they were not poison and then sat back and waited for
the magic to happen. We were sitting pretty far back when someone besides the group of six boys who started there showed up. It was an ex-girlfriend of mine with one of her friends and the wrong idea about why I had invited her. The girls came in and looked around at the lack of anything that would indicate a party and then sat uncomfortably on the couch nursing a root beer while my one rude and awkward friend made fun of them. My ex came over to me and asked if we could talk in private I obliged and when we were alone she asked why I had invited her to this party. I told her that I was inviting lots of people. She asked if that was it and that there was no other reason. I realized that her implication was that she thought I might want to get back together, I told her it was just a friendly thing and she got a little pissed and said that they needed to get to another party. They were there about 20 minutes in total and when they left we sat in the front room acting like we were sitting around for no reason in particular and willing some hot babes to stop by. They opted for not coming and at eleven we got the picture and went downstairs to watch some naughty movies with more naked bosom than plot. We watched 'Body of Evidence' starring Madonna and her unclothed body.
It was painfully boring and I was so disappointed
that no one but a mixed up ex would accept my invite. I kissed no one
and went home early. So, I still don't know how 'Body of Evidence'
ends.
 |
| We party soft core. |
the magic to happen. We were sitting pretty far back when someone besides the group of six boys who started there showed up. It was an ex-girlfriend of mine with one of her friends and the wrong idea about why I had invited her. The girls came in and looked around at the lack of anything that would indicate a party and then sat uncomfortably on the couch nursing a root beer while my one rude and awkward friend made fun of them. My ex came over to me and asked if we could talk in private I obliged and when we were alone she asked why I had invited her to this party. I told her that I was inviting lots of people. She asked if that was it and that there was no other reason. I realized that her implication was that she thought I might want to get back together, I told her it was just a friendly thing and she got a little pissed and said that they needed to get to another party. They were there about 20 minutes in total and when they left we sat in the front room acting like we were sitting around for no reason in particular and willing some hot babes to stop by. They opted for not coming and at eleven we got the picture and went downstairs to watch some naughty movies with more naked bosom than plot. We watched 'Body of Evidence' starring Madonna and her unclothed body.
 |
| How can a movie with Madonna not be classy? |
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