I'd be afraid that the movie "Cabin Fever" was going to actuate itself at the cabin where I am currently vacaying...

Except that, let's be real, if Shawn from Boy Meets World showed up here, even with a flesh-eating virus and murderous neighbors, I probably would be uber psyched. He was the coolest rebel-without-a-cause of '90's children's television. My best friend wasn't even allowed to watch Boy Meets World when she was a kid because Shawn was so badass. Seriously, true life.

So, since my birthday was on Friday--I turned 19, which is really one of the lamest ages you can turn, but I digress--I thought I'd do a birthday-themed blogpost. Okay, maybe "themed" is the wrong word, as I won't be decorating the page with balloons or cake or birthday clowns (because clowns are just downright frightening and anyone who hires a clown for their children's birthday is an evil human being who deserves to be shanked--seriously, have you seen Spawn?). Maybe a more appropriate word would be a birthday-related blogpost. Yeah, we'll go with that. Anyway, here's the story of my sixth birthday party. (There are some pretty cool bongos randomly posted up in this cabin right now, so I just gave myself a drumroll.)




When I was five years old, my family moved to a new house. To the five-year-old me, this was pretty outrageous and unjust for several reasons. First of all, it meant I'd have to change schools. Granted, I had only gone through kindergarten at my first school, but obviously kindergarten is where all social interaction through fifth grade is rooted. I had made some really cool friends (and by "cool" I mean "ultra-nerdy," but I was unaware of that fact until years later), and I was completely in love with a boy named Nathan Wall. Sure, he had totally ditched me on Valentine's Day to go after one of my friends who didn't even notice his cute little striped t-shirts and jorts (before they were considered janky), but that didn't matter. My love remained. I'd always sit by him during story time and make puffy little white hearts for him when we played with shaving cream (I can't believe that was legitimately something they gave us to do for fun in kindergarten--clearly our tax dollars are well-spent on educating the future of America; I mean, we all know Obama sits in the Oval Office, playing with shaving cream while mulling over perplexing political issues). And now my parents were ripping me away from Nathan Wall. I felt like Romeo being banishèd, except that I had no idea who Romeo was nor what "banishèd" meant, so it was probably more analogous to saying goodbye to Barney at the end of an episode or something equally as tragic to a five-year-old. To this day, I pine for my lost kindergarten love. 
Second of all, we had just built this pretty radical treehouse in our backyard that was both rugged and woodsy enough to be used as a killer fort/battlefront, and yet classy and polished enough to host a delightful tea party with my Beanie Baby collection. In short, it was awesome, and we had only built it a few months before the move. When I realized that our new backyard didn't even have a swing set, I was furious. (I mean, really, what kind of a gyp is that?)
Third of all, I was being forced to leave my best friend who lived two doors down from us. We were only moving a few miles away, but to a five-year-old, a few miles is roughly equivalent to a lightyear. I was almost positive I would never see him again, and this was deeply troubling. When I went to say goodbye to him, however, he decided to reveal to me a deep, dark secret that he had been harboring for years: the kid loved Barbies. He showed me the loft of his family's garage, and it was absolutely covered in them--and not just Barbie dolls, but cars, houses, accessories, boyfriends, you name it. He had it all. I was flabbergasted. I was disturbed. I high-tailed it out of his backyard and was ready to move right then and there. (And I know what you're probably thinking--this guy's got to be gay, like Neil Patrick Harris Broadway-style flaming. But you'd be wrong. He is now kind of a thug who loves to mack on the ladies. Some dudes just like dolls.)
The point of this tirade is that I was deeply upset that we were moving, and I was openly embittered about it. When it came time for my birthday a few months later, I was still pretty peeved about the whole situation, and my parents weren't helping: they didn't even want me to have a party. Injustice! Oppression! Malfeasance! And to top it all off, my grandparents were coming to town. Now, I'm the first person to comment on how adorable the elderly are, especially in couple form, but I did not consider their visit to be a treat. Sure, my grandpa was a fly dude, a military vet who told you eating horseradish would make you grow hair on your chest and who always smelled like old-school Old Spice, but my grandma is definitely a cheek-grabber. Plus, I'm not a boy, I have no "seed," so I can't carry on the family name--meaning I am the least favorite of her grandchildren. This is clearly evident when she sends me $5 Taco Bell coupons for major holidays.
So my grandparents arrived for their "birthday visit" (since my birthday and both of my parents' birthdays are within two weeks of each other), and I was definitely not a happy camper. I pouted and stomped around the house, communicating my five-year-old displeasure via body language that I desperately wanted my parents to decode, but that I would deny if confronted about it. (*stomp stomp stomp* *angry face* *stomp* *angry face* "Is something wrong, Tina?" "What? No, why would you ask me that?") I know, I was such a mentally-sophisticated kindergartner. I'm telling you, it was the shaving cream.
The Saturday afternoon of their visit, my grandma offered to take me to the movies to see Madeline, the real-life movie version of the cartoon little redhead girl in the funny blue outfit. I was ecstatic. I don't know that I had really cared too much for the Madeline cartoons, but seeing movies was, at that juncture of my life, about the funnest activity that I could possibly engage in. My grandma put me in the backseat of her token old people car (a.k.a. a tan-colored Buick sedan), and we made the daunting five-minute journey to the cinemas.
The movie was alright. Frances McDormand as a crazy nun is a little bit much for any almost-six-year-old, and the little girl playing Madeline was kind of a spaz. The July sun whipped me with its cruel rays as Grandma and I trudged back to her car. Right as I was about to lift the handle to the backseat door, she stopped me.
"Uh, honey, I've got something for you to put on before we go home. Your mom wants you to."
I was instantly suspicious. Put on? Put on what? And why must this be done before we arrive back at the house? Already she wasn't making any sense, and I'm not one to blindly follow along with something just because I'm told to--look where that got the Nazis, and those people who wore those mesh tank tops in the '90s, and those douchebags who drank Zima (probably the same people wearing the mesh tanks). Not happenin'.
My grandma popped her trunk and pulled out a lavender dress with cream-colored lace adorning the neckline. 
"What is that?" I asked with some disdain. At this point in my childhood, I was still in full-on gymnastics mode--meaning I was sort of a tomboy. I wore my hair in a ponytail 98% of the time, and wearing dresses and looking cute weren't really my foremost goals in life. I was perfectly comfortable in my shorts and cotton (not mesh) tank top, thank you very much. Why the heck would I want to put on a dress right now? Especially since, with the steamy summer heat, I'd probably just sweat right through it?
"It's a nice dress that your mommy wants you to wear home. C'mon, let's just put it on."
Okay, Grandma, even if I really did want to put this dress on, we're in the middle of the movie theater parking lot. There are countless passers-by and I am not about to get down to my skivvies in front of all these creeps. I may be five-almost-six, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate or cute for me to run around in public half-naked. Have some decency.
"Um, Grandma, I'm not putting that dress on."
"Oh, c'mon, honey, it'll make your mother happy. Just put it on." While I could understand it making my mother happy that I would wear a dress, since my tomboyishness really wasn't to her liking, I couldn't imagine why in the world she'd need me to wear this dress right this minute. What purpose would that serve? I was seriously confused, and, as such, I was getting more and more defensive.
"No, Grandma, I'm not wearing that dress. Let's just go home."
"Sweetie, we've got to put the dress on! Here, let me help you." She started tugging at my shirt, trying to yank it over my head, getting more violent the more I resisted her efforts. I felt extremely violated.
"What are you doing!? Leave me alone!"
"We just need to put this dress on!"
I flailed my arms in an attempt to both inadvertently smack her and to make it more difficult for her to remove my clothing. I felt like I was flailing for my life. She was gravely serious about me putting this dress on, and I was going to have to fight her to the death to keep my dignity. The passers-by began to stare. It was all thoroughly embarrassing. I started sweating enough to fill up a new ocean (the Sweatlantic?). The struggle raged on.
"Grandma, I really don't wanna wear this dress! You can't make me!"
"Honey, just wear the dress. Please!
"No!
"Please!"
"No!"
"OH, JUST PUT IT ON!" she yelled, in a voice very similar to that scary girl with the twisty neck in The Exorcist. I froze. The temperature of my blood went from "boiling with rage" to "sub-arctic."
"O--okay, G-grandma . . . "
"Good. That's better." She pulled the dress over my head casually and tied the strings in a bow in the back, threw my clothes in the trunk, and returned me to the backseat of the car. I didn't know what was going on, but at that point I was pretty sure my grandmother might try to eat my soul if I stepped out of line, so I just kept my mouth shut and hoped I hadn't been abducted by an alien disguised as a sixty-year-old woman.
We pulled up to the house, and the moment the door was unlocked, I bolted out of the car. I needed my mommy and I needed her right this instant. Someone needed to save me from this crazy, dress-wielding senior psycho. As I bounded up the steps to the front door, my grandma called to me: "No, honey, I think we have to go in the back door. I don't think the front door is open. C'mon, let's go to the back deck!"
I was leery of this announcement, because we never entered the house through the back door. I didn't even think anyone owned a key to that door. Maybe Grandma was going senile? That would definitely make sense given the rest of the circumstances. With eyes narrowed, I slowly attempted to open the front door. No luck. I briefly considered ringing the doorbell, but I'd have felt a little silly ringing the doorbell at my own house. I cautiously plodded over to my grandmother, who was smiling wildly at me like The Joker had given her a facelift, and I followed her toward the backyard. When I rounded the corner to the steps of the deck, I heard a small crowd shout "Happy birthday!"
I stopped dead in my tracks, stupefied. All of my friends from gymnastics and from school were gathered there on my deck, giggling and grinning and clapping their hands for me, the girl of the hour. It was then that I understood the lavender dress: my surprise party was "princess"-themed, and all the girls were dolled up in long evening gowns with strings of pearls and shiny tiaras. It was too cool.
Once I recovered from the shock, I joined everyone on the deck and engaged in excited chatter about how awesome it was that our moms let us wear real lipstick for the occasion and how we were never going to wear anything but high heels ever again. I proceeded to open up some pretty great presents: some dolls and some karaoke supplies and some clothes and accessories covered in neon-colored fur (which was all the rage at the time--a trend I am just too sad has died out). My grandparents gave me a suitcase. That was seriously lame. I tried to act like I was excited about it, but come on, it was a piece of luggage--unless it's got Polly Pocket on it, no six-year-old girl is going to go buck nutty over a suitcase. But I guess it was a step up from Taco Bell coupons and fuzzy socks (another item I am frequently given by my grandma--at least my feet will never be cold.)
The party ended up getting ruined by my brother and his neighborhood gang of hoodlum friends who launched a water gun attack on me and my girlfriends, soaking our fancy dresses and making me cry tears of pure rage. But for the most part, it was a pretty enjoyable event, and it's the only surprise birthday party I've ever had (presumably because my mother is horrible at keeping exciting secrets from me), and it removed my pent-up bitterness about moving to a new house. (No, Barbie Boy wasn't at the princess party, but I have a feeling he would have really enjoyed accessorizing an outfit for the occasion.) To this day, however, I am always slightly frightened when left alone with my grandma, for fear that the crazy wardrobe demon will return to her body and she'll start wrapping me in a tablecloth or something--and, let's face it, plaid is seriously not my color.

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I think my cat is like the feline equivalent of the "diabeetus" guy.

In fact, she looks a bit like this cat, but is less fluffy and doesn't have a mustache.

She's like 85 in cat years, severely overweight, and very likely does have diabetes, but she hasn't been to the vet since she was a kitten. Does that make me a bad parent? Probably. But that just goes to show you why you shouldn't let a six-year-old be in charge of another life form.

So I'm back home in Louisville now until the fall semester begins, which obviously means I have become seriously unmotivated. I don't know what it is about being at home, but it makes me want to be completely unproductive. God forbid if I come home on a break and have a paper to write or something, because it certainly won't get done. Perhaps it's this sweltering heat (I know, you probably haven't noticed it, but I'd call it a heat wave!) that has made me lazy. Either way, I'm forcing myself to write this blogpost so that I don't feel like a complete waste of matter. Please enjoy (or harshly criticize, depending upon your particular inclination) the story of how I became a vegetarian. I thought I'd make a blogpost about this, not because it's all that entertaining in and of itself, but because it's probably my most frequently-asked-question--including "Are you albino?" and "Do you have eyebrows?" which come close, but only manage to make the top five.



When I was in sixth grade, I wasn't exactly a social butterfly. Having come from an elementary school where I was the captain of the quick recall team, constantly told people that I was going to make them spontaneously combust (like I was Marnie from Halloweentown), and had the (actually kind of justified) nickname of "The Human Dictionary," I wasn't very well-versed in conducting normal social interactions, which rather hindered my making friends. Sure, I wasn't completely deficient--c'mon, I wasn't homeschooled--but I think a deaf-mute probably could have made more friends way faster than I did. I had a tendency to antagonize and patronize people as a defense mechanism--I had read Lord of the Flies, and I knew it was kill or be killed, even in public school (hell, especially in public school)--so even if I did manage to socialize with others, it often didn't end well. This was particularly the case when I interacted with the opposite sex; I stayed in the "boys have cooties" phase a tad bit longer than most other girls.Yes, I made an enemy of almost every male who crossed my path, but I only had one arch nemesis: Craig Martin. (*Note: That's not his real name; it has been changed in case he ever happens to read this, which is doubtful. But if you knew me in the sixth grade, you will know exactly who I'm talking about. Also, on a side note to the side note, I had to browse a baby names site to find a suitable alias for this guy, which reminded me of how the fad in the sixth grade happened to be browsing baby names sites, for whatever reason. Is this Google+? Because I just came full circle.)
I'm not really sure what it was about Craig Martin that irked me, but I absolutely loathed that kid. It may have been because I thought he had a crush on me, which A) was a pretty outrageous concept at the time, considering my lack of fashion sense and my offensive manner of communicating with others solely via insults, and B) freaked me out a bit, as boys were definitely not my favorite group of human beings at the time (in fact they were probably second to last only to carnies.) He was also rather stereotypically redneck, which I found highly disagreeable--though it's true I can lapse into a pretty embarrassing southern drawl if I'm not careful. He wore an exorbitant amount of camo, constantly talked about hunting and four-wheeling and other mysterious hick activities, and he also happened to have a neck that was actually rather red in color. In reality, Craig was probably a very nice boy who never tried to offend a soul, but to me, he was rude and crude and full of faulty redneck logic that I simply had no patience for. And as the year progressed, our rivalry got more and more heated, to the point where even our teachers noticed our constant feud--they would make sure to keep us as far away from each other as possible when they assigned seats, and made sure never to put us together for group projects. Our battle seemed somehow larger than the sixth grade, more like a battle of cultures, a battle between right and wrong. We were like Israel and Palestine, Mario and Bowser, Conan and NBC. It was a battle of epic proportions--okay, maybe not that intense, but it certainly felt that way to me. I wouldn't have been surprised if we had quipped to the death; I could have foreseen the headline: "Sixth-Grade Girl and Boy Insult Each Other into Heart Failure."
The day was like any other day at Noe Middle School on 6 Pacesetters: kids were chatting amongst themselves because the teachers didn't actually bother to hold their attention, and this chatter was audible everywhere because half of the "classrooms" in the school were just spaces enclosed by bulletin boards on wheels (I kid you not.) I was sitting in social studies, where our teacher usually just played Metallica and forced us 11-year-olds into arguments about politics, just minding my own business and reading a book, when I realized that the chatter was getting much louder than normal. The decibels in the room were climbing so quickly that you'd have thought someone had whipped out a new Pokemon game or scantily-clad pictures of some Nickelodeon star or something.
Well, they were scantily-clad pictures, all right.
Of a deer.
Being undressed.
And by "undressed" I mean sliced open, gutted, and skinned. In the most graphic and gory manner you can imagine. Looking at those photos, you'd think whoever killed that deer was a sociopath who was practicing his murder techniques on woodland creatures (I know, I watch too much Criminal Minds, sue me.) I had known several people who hunted deer and other animals, and it had never particularly struck me as upsetting before, but these pictures filled me with rage and disgust. Especially when I finally saw who had brought them in for this sick show and tell: Craig Martin.
I instantly got the urge to punch Craig in the face, but, seeing as I'm not a violent person, nor could I probably inflict pain on anyone larger than an infant, I refrained from such tomfoolery. Instead, I began to snatch the pictures from everyone's hands, scolding them for looking upon such heartless material. All I could think of was Bambi's mother, sprawled out on the ground, a bullet through her skull, her intestines oozing out onto the grass, and little Bambi observing from the trees, orphaned and now destined for a lifetime of therapy or gang activity, or maybe like the deer version of Dexter. It was appalling. It was grotesque. And it was all Craig Martin's fault.
I took the photos over to Craig's desk and slammed them down menacingly. "What are these!?" I shouted.
He looked bemused at my horror. "Pictures of my hunting trip from last weekend. We gutted open a great big doe. Isn't it awesome?" He asked this with full knowledge that I most certainly did not think it was awesome. I seethed.
"How could you defile the corpse of this poor mama deer!? You are a psycho! You're heartless! This is absolutely disgusting and you need to put these pictures away right this minute or I will tell Ms. Pollock that you are causing a disturbance!" (I used to be a huge tattle tale. Once, in the third grade, I tattled so much during a single recess period that when there was finally something legitimate to tattle on--fifth graders making little kindergarteners box each other--my teacher wouldn't even listen to me.)
He began taunting me with the photos, enjoying his sadistic power to disturb me with the gore. "Look at this one! Cool, huh? I think that's her spleen! Oh, and see this one! We're cutting the skin right off of her back!" My face got hot and I was practically in tears. For a minute I thought I was going to morph into the Incredible Hulkerina. And honestly, thinking about it right now, my anger was about 10% caused by Bambi's mother's slaying and about 90% due to Craig Martin's relentless teasing.
We went back and forth with our argument for several minutes before Craig did the most insensitive thing he could think of. He took the deer's skin, which he had brought in to show to everyone (and possibly to snuggle up in if he got cold), and he threw it on top of me. It was like I was a yapping bird and he threw a blanket over my cage to shut me up, which was already rude enough, but to use the very skin he had torn from this poor animal's body? That was just crossing the line. Actually, that was crossing lines, plural.
I gave off a rather loud and sustained shriek, silencing the rest of the classroom, and then I yanked the blanket off of my head and threw it back at him with the force of my entire body. My hair, of course, was mussed up, tears were falling down my face, my clothes were disheveled. I looked like Bear Grylls after a battle with a hyena for shelter from a stampede (has he ever done that? If not, he totally should.) My disorderly appearance and my rage teamed up to make me feel like a tribal woman, putting me in touch with my one-eighth Blackfoot Indian heritage, and my heart yearned to avenge the death of this creature of nature.
"That's it!" I howled. "I'm going to become a vegetarian!" I used the word like it was a weapon, like I was verbally giving Craig Martin one big middle finger. "Because of you, Craig Martin, I am never going to eat meat again! I'm going to save animals! I'm going to save the world!" I know, I was ambitious.
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really!"
"Good luck with that, Christine. Ha!" He doubted my commitment and my self-control. But he had another thing coming.
I went straight home after school and finished the package of bologna in the refrigerator. Well, I thought, it makes more sense to just start this whole vegetarian thing tomorrow, clean slate. And this is perfectly good bologna. And I love bologna. This bologna can't be sitting around the house when I'm trying to go veg! It's gotta get eaten. And so it was. Along with several other meat items in the refrigerator.
I sat my parents down that evening and told them of my intentions to become a vegetarian. My mother was concerned--"But how will you get your protein?! That can't be healthy! You'll be anemic!"--but mostly my parents were skeptical of my seriousness. "Yeah, okay, Tina, you're gonna be a vegetarian. Right."
The first few days passed with everyone at school and at home treating me like I was trying to change ethnicities rather than eating habits, like sooner or later I would realize that it wasn't going to happen and I would just give in and stop trying to be Asian.
But I didn't.
I kept going meatless.
And kept going meatless.
More to prove to everyone else that I could actually make such a bold decision and stick with it, rather than to save the animals. But I certainly put on the PETA persona those first few months, doing all kinds of research, writing papers on animal cruelty, joining mail lists, taking pledges, and just generally being a psycho. I was probably pretty unbearable to be around--well, more so than usual, at least.
Eventually my rivalry with Craig Martin simmered down and evolved into more pity than hatred. He "asked me out" (whatever that was supposed to mean in middle school) the next year and cried when I turned him down. Poor guy. Then he went to high school and became some crazy intense jujitsu master or something, presumably ditching many of the redneck attributes for which I despised him so much. Funny how people change.
But though Craig is no longer my arch nemesis nor a huge hick barfly on the horse face of the planet Earth, I remain a vegetarian. Probably from not having eaten meat for so long, I now find the concept of consuming flesh to be quite peculiar indeed. Even though it's probably one of the most natural elements of any ecosystem, it seems rather unnatural to me. Then again, I'm generally known to view normal things as odd (e.g. swimming, drinking alcohol, crying at movies, etc.), so my vegetarianism is really just another feather in my freak cap. In fact, I probably have enough feathers in my freak cap to qualify as a Native American chief.
So the next time you eat a meal with me and realize that I have no meat on my plate, you won't need to address that elephant in the room, because you'll already be one step ahead.

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I have that kind of luck where I could jump off of a ship in the middle of a lake and fall right into the mouth of a yawning shark.

Yeah, I know sharks don't live in lakes. That's kind of my point. Really, it's kind of impressive that I have this ridiculous kind of luck. But that doesn't make up for it sucking.
The past (approximately) 36 hours of my life have been seriously ridiculous, and the events that have transpired will make a great blogpost. Someday.

Until that day, I will continue to entertain you with stories like the following, which is about a time when my family and I almost died, but not really.



When I was ten, back before Mexico was the place you vacationed if you enjoyed getting kidnapped and left to die in the desert, my family took a trip to Cancun. It was a glorious place, where every pool had a swim-up bar and every meal was accompanied by a smiling mariachi band. I don't even think I got (very) sunburned, which is a miracle in and of itself, considering this glowing alabaster complexion of mine (or "pasty," as some people of eloquence like to refer to it.) Yes, the week had been straight from a Mary Kate and Ashley vacation movie--minus the Australian guy from House putting the moves on me--and, having packed up all of our delightful memories in our suitcases, we began the journey homeward.
Mexican cabbies (not to generalize, but, I'm generalizing here) are terrible, awful drivers. They exceed the speed limit usually by at least double, and they weave in and out of lanes like they're trying to write calligraphy with their tire tracks. We boarded one of these death machines and it delivered us, slightly bruised and battered from being flung around inside the car, to a fairly sketchy bus station. Though probably all bus stations in Mexico--scratch that, North America--are sketchy, so I guess I really had no room to complain.
The bus station was confusing because, unlike the tourist-y areas that we had ventured around all week, hardly anything was in English, and we didn't have one of those pretentious "All the Spanish You Need to Know to Go on Vacation in Mexico" translation books--because, let's get real, those just make you sound like you learned Spanish from some drunk guy you shared a Dos Equis with on Cinco de Mayo. Somehow, after attempting to decode the broken English of several passers-by, we located the correct bus that would take us to the airport.
It was hot outside, but not just any "hot," the kind of hot that makes you sweat from places you didn't even know had pores. With the kind of humidity that turns every breath, every greenhouse gas emission, every stench in the air, into a sticky liquid residue that settles onto your skin. So essentially, it was disgusting, and having a hundred people crammed into a confined, un-air-conditioned space was like fighting a wildfire with a windstorm. I don't even want to think about the bodily fluids that I acquired from all the random strangers who brushed up against me.
The bus began to pull away from the station, but, ten seconds into the cesspool-mobile's journey, it broke down. That should have been enough of an omen to make us wary for the remainder of our odyssey, and yet, naive as we were, it barely even phased us. We were directed onto another bus, and successfully recommenced our travel.
The airport was a pretty dinky establishment, but compared to our airplane, it was Caesar's Palace. Our airplane looked like the life-sized version of something you'd see on the Island of Misfit Toys. The panels on the wings were falling off, it had rust spots that gave it a very "chicken pox" look, and the "Vacation Express" logo on its side had faded like a fake tattoo. "This . . . this is what we're flying on?" My mother was not happy. She already had a fear of flying, and an even bigger fear of flying over water, so the sorry state of the mode of transportation that would be carrying us over that water did not make her feel any better. "Relax, hon. It's fine." My dad, always the source of minimal comfort.
Our flight had gotten slightly delayed, so, added on top of the death-defying cab ride and that portable sauna of a bus, my brother and I were understandably bored, tired, cranky, and, above all, seriously thirsty. We boarded the plane with only one thing in mind: free coke (and by "coke," I mean the southern assumption that all soft drinks are "coke," and not necessarily actual Coca-Cola, and by no means cocaine). Our flight attendants--two ditzy twenty-something girls and a rather entertaining flamboyantly homosexual guy--walked up and down the aisles, assuring that our seatbelts were fastened and our luggage was properly stowed. They went through the safety manual and acted out all of the instructions like fifth graders putting on Cats in the style of a Dr. Seuss poem. My brother and I were looking at the terrible illustrations in the manual when a particular picture caught our eye: the slide. Inflated for emergency evacuations, this big yellow "safety feature" was like a built-in moonbounce; no doubt the pilots had bounce house parties when they were off-duty, probably had their kids' birthday parties on that thing. It was too cool. "Mom, we totally want to go down the slide!" we excitedly informed our mother. She was horrified. "No! No you don't! Don't even say that!" she scolded, her face turning pale at the thought.
After a few minutes of riding around randomly on the tarmac like he was trying to find a Wendy's, our pilot got us airborne. My brother and I were beside ourselves. Beverages! Soon! Must take in liquid so that we really have to pee right before we land when we're not allowed out of our seats therefore making ourselves miserable! But right around the time when we reached the proper elevation, when they should have been breaking out the drink carts and preparing bags of peanuts, nothing was happening. None of the flight attendants were astir. My family happened to be seated near the very back of the plane, where the stewards had their little home base, so, lacking answers and any other means of entertainment besides SkyMall, we began to eavesdrop and spy.
The phone in the back kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing. The delightful gay guy, who I will call Fosse, was the only one answering the calls from the pilot. And each time Fosse answered, his face got a little more serious, his eyes a little darker, his forehead a little more crinkled. What are they doing, asking each other riddles or something? I thought to myself. There's no time for riddles! There is only time for beverage service! I was deeply perplexed at their inattention to the passengers, namely me.
Finally, the pilot came over the intercom and made an announcement to explain the delay in liquid distribution: "Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we've hit a bit of bad weather, so we're going to re-route to Sarasota and make our landing at the Sarasota airport. Nothin' to worry about, we'll have you safely on the ground shortly."
Okay, bad weather. I guess that makes sense.
But I looked over at my mother, and her eyes were practically bulging right out of their sockets. And then it hit me. I looked out the window: nothing but clear skies and sunshine for miles and miles. There was barely even a tuft of cloud disturbing the vast expanse of powder blue. A passenger across the aisle was also clearly puzzled. "Anyone on the other side see any signs of bad weather? We've got nothin' over here." A few passengers slowly shook their heads. No one quite knew what to make of it. Had he meant we were being re-routed around the bad weather? Or were the storm clouds below us? Or were we being duped? I was starting to think the pilot was just razzin' us and the flight attendants were going to break out the drink carts at any moment, and then we'd all laugh and land and go home with a cute little memory to cap off our lovely vacation.
No such luck.
The flight attendants were clearly panicking; Fosse's voice was at a soprano level. Something was wrong, very wrong, and it was only a matter of time before they were going to have to tell us. Whispers ran up and down the aisles, speculating at explanations for the bizarre behavior we were witnessing. My mother remained a stone figure, rigid in her seat, with that look on her face like she was bracing herself (ironically) for impact. She was scared, but she was also acutely aware of every hushed word and every flick of a finger. If the stewards are supposed to be the mood thermostats of a flight, then we were all headed for "everybody flip a shit" territory. We were turning into crazed lions who could smell the blood of an injured antelope but couldn't find the body. Somebody needed to show us that carcass, and somebody needed to do it right the hell now.
Sensing the atmosphere aboard the flight, the pilot finally came over the intercom. His voice was different than it had been before, more strained, more hesitant. "Hey, folks . . . It has come to our attention that, uh, there has been, um, smoke detected in the cargo area . . . Fire extinguishers have, uh, been deployed . . . We will be making an, um, emergency landing in Sarasota . . . The emergency slides will be inflated and we'll exit through the rear of the plane . . . Please, everyone, remain calm . . . Uh, thank you."
Instant panic. Uncontrollable frenzy. The flight attendants are crying. "Do you see land yet!?" "Can anyone see land!?" "Oh, God!"
People were saying their Hail Marys, children were screaming, couples were embracing as if for the last time. A newlywed couple across the aisle from us were writing their goodbyes on puke bags. My mother was absolutely hysterical, 100% sure that our plane was going down. I could see it in her eyes: at least we would be going down together.
I probably would have shared in some of these activities and sentiments, had the pilot not caught my attention with another matter. The inflatable slide. We were gonna get to go down the inflatable freaking slide. I looked over at my brother and he clearly had the same thought. I became giddy and excited, anxiously awaiting our landing for all the wrong reasons. Had I not been so ignorant, it might have seemed pretty badass that I was unconcerned with the imminent danger on our hands. No matter how much the passengers around me cried and screamed and awaited death, there were only three words that could get through to me: Bouncy. Yellow. Slide. It was like a dream come true, like winning enough tickets to get that Barbie Convertible from Chuck E. Cheese, like going to Disney World and getting one of those passes where you get to cut everybody in line for the rides. Nothing could kill my excitement--well, except for the plane crashing, but who was really banking on that, right?
After what felt like hours, but was really probably only (truly, deeply, madly, other annoying words ending in -ly) about twenty minutes, Sarasota came into view and, surprisingly, people became more panicked. I guess crashing and burning when land is only minutes away would probably be pretty depressing. But, much to the brief relief of everyone onboard, our flight landed safely on the Sarasota tarmac, met by a dozen fire engines and police cars, and possibly a few bomb squad members, though maybe that was just my wishful thinking to make the situation more reminiscent of a really intense action movie, preferably starring Tom Cruise circa before the aliens.
The flight attendants had cautioned us to remain seated with our seatbelts fastened until the pilot gave the okay, but my mother had her seatbelt off faster than a cowboy at a quick draw, and she was up on her feet ready to evacuate. I of course followed suit, but out of excitement rather than fear. Here comes the slide!
The slide was inflated, the pilot gave the okay, and we all formed a single file line to exit out the rear of the plane. My heart was racing and I was bouncing around the aisle like someone had switched out cocaine for my Fun Dip (I guess, contrary to what I said earlier, I may have been referring to cocaine rather than a carbonated beverage, unbeknownst to me). When I got to the head of the line, people were screaming and shaking around me, but I might as well have been at a Six Flags for all I knew. I took a deep breath and jumped onto the slide. I contemplated going head first, but I was trying to avoid a nasty belly burn, so I stuck with the seated position.
And boy. Was. That. Fun. I swooshed down that big, bouncy pillow like a skier maneuvering down Everest. It was exhilarating. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're too old to enjoy sliding down a slide, because it's simply untrue. It's a universally fun activity. When I reached the bottom, I was gasping for breath, my hair was in disarray, and I had a massive grin decorating my fearless face. Well, my bucket list's complete. This plane can blow up into a million fiery pieces, and I wouldn't be the least bit concerned because I can now die happy. This was my thought process. (I know, I was kind of pathetic.)
All the women and children rushed away from the plane to avoid any possible explosions, with the men staying behind to ensure the rest of the passengers' safety. The scene was chaos, slightly reminiscent of the airport scene in Liar, Liar, but without the comic relief of Jim Carrey. We were escorted to a dark and empty building by what seemed to be a mall cop tooling around the Sarasota airport in a golf cart. Where he came from, no one knew, but we all entered the building with sighs of relief, happy to be out of danger. The men followed soon after, bringing news that no one had been harmed and the area had been safely evacuated.
Someone turned on some dim lights, and we discovered that we were in what appeared to be an abandoned terminal. It was pretty creepy; it looked like the setting of a cheesy horror movie starring fairly good actors who are trying to kill their careers. The only thing left to do was sit and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, a representative from the airport came in to give us the low-down. "Good evening, everyone. We have inspected your plane and it appears that the alarm that your pilot received from the cargo area was actually triggered by the malfunctioning of an idiot light."
Seriously? An idiot idiot light? How anti-climactic. I wanted there to have been a bomb onboard, or some freak accident with fireworks, or something. They don't make action movies about malfunctioning idiot lights. Somebody hire this woman a better screenwriter.
"We're preparing another plane for you to fly you to your original destination, Orlando. But before we can allow you onboard that plane, we're going to have to check you in through customs. You're actually in the customs concourse of our airport." How convenient! At least we'll be on our way soon enough. "The only problem is, we had this concourse built several years ago, but we haven't received enough funding to actually expand to the status of an international airport." Are you kidding? Where's the camera? Ashton, get your ugly-trucker-hat-wearing patootie out here. I know I'm being Punk'd. "We're going to fly in customs workers from Orlando [how ironic] so that you can properly be checked in. They should be here in a couple of hours. Until then, we've got some snacks and drinks that you guys are welcome to. We thank you for your patience and understanding."
Okay, I would have jumped on her back like an angry spider monkey had she not used the magic word: snacks. I immediately began scanning the area, searching with my SSR (Super Snack Radar) for the goods. At last, the boxes were spotted, and I made a bee-line for the prize. And then I halted and cursed the gods.
The box was labeled "Y2K."
These snacks were from the year 2000. And they were the kind of food you'd stock in a nuclear bomb shelter--since Y2K was supposed to be the end of the world and all, obviously--to last for decades. In short, it was like tiny packages of salted cardboard. I was disgusted. Some hospitality we were getting. They couldn't spare a few bags of airplane peanuts? I'd have been satisfied with just one peanut. Half a peanut. Work with me here, Sarasota.
I angrily trudged back to the conveyor belt on which my family was stationed, to impatiently and begrudgingly wait out the next couple of hours. I even refused the Y2K water, though I was severely parched and, of all things, the Y2K water probably would have been ingestable. I'll have none of it; save it for 2012, Sarasota.
Fast forward a couple of boring hours during which I people-watched several quirky passengers: the customs workers finally arrived and we were officially checked back into the good ole U S of A. We boarded the flight to Orlando, and, before we even had enough time to fasten our seatbelts, we landed safely at the Orlando International Airport. What awaited us in that airport, however, none of us had foreseen.
We exited the aircraft and entered into a terminal full of angry flyers. Apparently, our flight had delayed several other flights for several hours, and people were none too happy about this. They yelled, they cursed, they pointed fingers. Yeah, like it's our fault that our plane was so delayed. Like we collectively put in a vote and said, "Yeah, screw all those other people, let's just hang out on the plane for a hell of a long time and make everyone else wait on us." We're just that aristocratic.
Luckily, we yielded a powerful weapon in our sob story about the idiot light, so we calmed the infuriated masses by playing the sympathy card--really the best card; works every time. We soon boarded a flight to Louisville to complete the final chapter of our epic journey to reach home--really, I think Odysseus would've fist bumped us for sure.
Arriving in Louisville at two o'clock in the morning, we hailed the first cab we could find and quickly piled in. The odor in the cab was horrendous--like someone had killed a possum and left it in there to rot in one hundred degree weather--and our cabbie was a pretty shifty Middle Eastern guy named Habib. He drove like he was Miley Cyrus high on salvia and he just wanted to party in the USA, twisting and swerving with much less expertise than our previous Mexican cabbie; heck, he was beginning to look like Dale Earnhardt compared to Habib over here. He attempted to drop us off at the wrong house twice, but the third time was a charm, and he helped us unload our bags onto the driveway. My father paid him and he drove off into the night, his taillights painting a Picasso piece into the dewy air.
After he was out of sight, we all stood there for a moment in silence, looking at each other, holding our breath. And then we broke out in cheers, hugging each other and literally kissing the pavement, glad to be on firm ground with just ourselves around. The day had been a trying one, but we had made it out alive, together.
And now when I fly on airplanes, I can point to the big yellow slide in the safety manual and say to my fellow passenger, "Oh yeah, buddy. It's just as fun as it looks."

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I feel like a citizen of a highly-censored communist-government-run country (none come to mind . . .) trying to hack my way onto the Internet.

           This AirPort is really just cruisin’ for a bruisin’ right now. Seriously. I can’t get ethernet at my house, but I can get wifi at Panera? I can’t connect to Davidson Secure when I’m on campus, but I can connect to PawNet when I’m at Summit? Shut the front door, this is getting ridiculous. /endrant (UPDATE: I actually finished this post this morning, but had to jump through hoops and weave through obstacles like a prize-winning pony to actually post this on here. Cripes.)

            Sorry about that. I hate technology sometimes.

            On an embarrassing side note, I found the classiest song in my iTunes the other day: Kip’s “I Love Technology” song from Napoleon Dynamite. Why I downloaded that song and from where? Beyond me. I’d blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol, but I can’t. I was really that big of a loser.

            Getting down to bid-ness. This is the story of the only time I’ve ever been kicked out of a store (well, and a few other “onlys” too). The details of this account are a bit hazy, as it was kind of a whirlwind, but, since generality is the enemy of all art, as our good friend Konstantin liked to say, I’m going to fill in any gaps as logically as possible. Also, you may be surprised about the way this event characterizes my family, but, in sooth, they’re really this crazy.

            *Note: I realize with all the “we’s” in this story, it sounds like I was a 12-year-old alcoholic. I assure you, I was not.

           

           

            The first Saturday in May might sound like a meaningless date on your calendar, but in Louisville, it’s one of the biggest holidays of the year. Horses. Bourbon. Churchill Downs. Ridiculously large hats. B-List celebrities. Drunk people making up the words to “My Old Kentucky Home.” Tiny athletes in embarrassingly-patterned neon outfits. That bugle player in the funny red outfit who, like Santa Claus, probably only works this one day every year. An event so huge that hotels are booked up years in advance, and public and private schools alike take a three-day weekend. An event people will brave any kind of weather in order to be a part of: rain, snow, hail, projectile vomit.  An event that can give a three-year-old everlasting glory.

If by this point you haven’t realized that I’m talking about the Kentucky Derby, you seriously need to become more culturally aware.

            In anticipation of the Derby, there are approximately six weeks of festivals and events—which is ironic, considering, on average, the actual race lasts around two minutes tops—including a hot air balloon race, a steamboat race, a marathon . . . Okay, a lot of races, and a lot of corndog stands, too. There’s also the biggest fireworks display in North America (not that I’m bragging or anything) (suck it, Disneyworld!) What I’m driving at is that this little horse race—well, it’s kind of a big deal. And my family certainly never lets it pass idly by.

            Derby in my family is a tradition. Every year, various members of my extended family travel down from their little Midwestern towns, often bringing family friends, coworkers, random hitchhikers, cable guys, etc, to take part in one gigantic bacchanal of a weekend. And, being a very ornery clan of people, we also highly enjoy humiliating and torturing others, and this delight increases with every mint julep that is consumed (which is to say it can just about reach the moon in a very short amount of time.) Hence, there is an established tradition within the tradition, called “rookie-ing” (yes, “rookie” is a verb, go tell it to Strunk and White). If you’ve never been to our Derby before, or if it’s been a few years since you made this trip because you’ve had “responsibilities” and “jobs” and other insufficient excuses, you have to get rookie-ed. Now, the rules to rookie-ing seem to change every year, but a few things always stay the same: you’re gonna get drunk, you’re gonna get hurt, we’re gonna laugh at you, and, at some point, you’re gonna throw up, either from the alcohol or any of the other substances we might make you ingest. (We once forced my aunt to eat some hot sauce that was so painful, she chugged an entire gallon of milk. You can probably guess how that turned out.)

            Each year, we thrill ourselves as we compile a new list of torture techniques for the innocent and unsuspecting rookies who get caught in our dastardly Derby web. Some of the tests are gross (e.g. eating a plate of live earthworms—my uncle once did that just for kicks), some are dangerous (e.g. waterboarding—that was completely voluntary; they wanted to be waterboarded), some are just outrageous (e.g. doing cartwheels naked down the street—I wasn’t allowed to watch that one), and every activity has a corresponding point value, depending on its difficulty. (Surprisingly, we’ve only had the cops called on us once, maybe twice; our neighbors must sleep like sacks of potatoes.) Yes, we take our rookie-ing very seriously, and rookies have always just done what they’re told because, well, that’s just what you do. So when my cousin Tom, who had finally trekked down one year for Derby since becoming legally of drinking age, started saying “no,” no one really knew how to react.

            “C’mon, just—“

            “No.”

            “But you wouldn’t even have to—“

            “Nope!”

            “You really won’t—“

            “No, I don’t think so.”

            Tom had always been an old soul; he’d never quite been the life of the party. We’d known that going in. But he couldn’t just refuse to be rookie-ed . . . Could he? He didn’t even want to drink a mint julep. The terror level was at “oh shit,” and was quickly escalating to “must get blackout drunk to escape the depression.” Things were getting desperate. Something embarrassing and ridiculous had to happen soon, or we were all going to have conniptions.

            “Okay,” my uncle said. “You just have to do this one thing, that’s it, and we’ll consider you fully rookie-ed.”

            “Depends on what it is.”

            There was one challenge on the rookie list that year that we were all particularly proud of. It would certainly be one for the books. If we couldn’t witness this event before the weekend’s end, the whole year of meticulous planning and mounting anticipation would be for naught. We all crossed our fingers and toes as we anxiously awaited the proposal.

            “Dress up like a woman and go buy a douche.”

            Viscous silence. Then:
            “What!? No way, absolutely not.”

            Groans, curses, heavy gulping of alcoholic substances.

            “Come on,” my uncle pleaded—not his usual tactic of persuasion. He’s a used car salesman, a master of the hook. He once had an hour-long conversation with a telemarketer about her divorce. This man could probably convince Mary-Kate that she was Ashley. He could get a burglar to give him the crook’s own wallet. He could make Pogs sound fun. I’m telling you, he’s a miracle worker with words. He started haggling with Tom’s pride.

            “Okay, just a dress and shoes, no makeup or jewelry.”

            “No, Uncle Rex, I’m not doing it.”

            “Instead of a douche, you can just buy a box of tampons.”

            “This is not happening.”

            “We’ll go in the middle of the night when store traffic will be lowest.”

            “Uncle Rex—“

            We could all see it happening before our eyes: Rex was backing Tom into a metaphorical corner, eroding his defenses like an avalanche raging down a semi-drunk mountainside. He was looking hesitant, torn. He needed one last little push into the palm of our hands.

            “We’ll do it with you,” my brother offered, referring to Tom’s younger brother Jake.

            “There you go,” Rex said. “You can’t say ‘no’ now. These guys aren’t even getting rookie-ed.”

            We all looked at Tom expectantly, not anxious for an answer, for we knew what the answer would be—had to be. We waited for his concession so that we could hoot and holler, finish our mint juleps, and start getting the necessary supplies ready.

            “Okay, fine. Fine.”

            An eruption of laughter, high-fives, “woo-hoos,” and clinking glasses. Tom was already up to his eyeballs in regret, but there was no going back now.

My mom, my aunts, and I raced upstairs to my mom’s closet. We tore through her closet like looters, pulling out any dress that tickled our cruel fancies. “Is this pink enough?” “Is this neckline low enough?” “Can we cut this slit up any higher?” We wanted these boys to look like they’d just come from a gig at The Birdcage; subtlety could not be allowed. Gaudy garments were flying through the air like transvestite shooting stars, shoes were being examined—mainly for size—and tossed into frantic piles, scarves were whipping through the gusts of our tornado like flags at a gay pride parade.

The boys entered the war zone with gusto. Mitch and Jake were actually excited about this cross-dressing adventure—something that would’ve worried us at the time if we hadn’t been so excited ourselves. Tom was still pretty hesitant, but that couldn’t sway us—he was ours now, and we weren’t going to let him forget it. We showed them the options we had considered outrageous enough, letting them choose their own scantily clad fates.

Mitch and Jake were like two kids in a candy store—if those kids had daddy issues and that candy store was a Dress Barn. They quickly chose their favorite garments, Jake in a classy and elegant number and Mitch in a bright summer-evening gown—and then they shocked us all: they asked for more. They wanted bras, they wanted boobs, they wanted jewels and makeup and glitter. They were like the precursors to Gaga’s little monsters. We all swelled with pride—what exactly we were proud about, we weren’t sure, but the boys’ enthusiasm was infectious. Plus, we squealed with delight because we knew that, no matter the deal Rex had made with Tom, once the mascara and baubles started adorning Mitch and Jake, Tom would be defenseless against us.

We slathered hot pink lipstick on their faces, hung shiny necklaces ‘round their necks, adjusted bra straps to fit their big shoulders. It was like getting your daughter ready for the prom—a prom at a grocery store at 2 a.m., but still. We desperately searched for fruit, balloons, balled-up paper towels, anything that might make a suitable substitute for breasts. We had them all trannied up like Dennis Rodman, and just when we’d thought we’d finished, they’d want extras: “Can I get some glitter on my cheeks?” “Should I carry a handbag?” “Do these shoes match this dress?” I’m pretty sure every boy secretly has a desire to try on a dress and some lipstick, but few ever allow themselves to succumb to the impulse. Mitch and Jake weren’t just succumbing to the impulse; they were bear-hugging it, spooning with it, and were they quite unashamed.

We’d gotten Tom in a flowy pink-carnation-colored dress and some white sandals; we’d gotten a little makeup on him and a few pieces of jewelry. He wasn’t a masterpiece like the other two, but he was certainly prettier than we’d expected to get him. We directed our beauties downstairs to show the guys our handiwork. They guffawed and catcalled and poured them all drinks.

When they had guzzled down their cocktails, as we were preparing to journey over to the Meijer at which the shenanigans were to take place, Rex brought me our video camera.

“What’s this for?”

“We’re going to videotape this for posterity.” Pics or it didn’t happen, right?

“I’m not really a very good cameraman . . . “ Really, I wasn’t. I couldn’t hold a camera steady to save my life. To watch a video that I had personally recorded was like riding a roller coaster with astigmatism.

“You’ll be fine. Besides, I’ll probably have to deal with the business end of this.” The business end? They were going to buy tampons, douches, and adult diapers (that last item was added by Mitch and Jake in their excitement). They weren’t trading stocks or buying insurance. Clearly, I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

We all piled into two or three cars, each car well over its suggested (read: legal) capacity, for the two and a half minute drive to Meijer (which has been scientifically determined [by our odometers] to be exactly one mile from our driveway). We were all chattering with anticipation; the greatest two minutes in sports was a nice blip on our radar, but the real climax of our Derby weekend was about to go down.

We parked in a sparsely populated parking lot. It was really late— more a consequence of the time it took to prepare the divas rather than honoring the deal Rex had made with Tom—but there were sure to be enough people inside to heighten the stakes. We all tried to gain some crumb of composure as our huge group casually glided through the automatic doors. I turned on the camcorder and waited for the magic to happen.

Immediately, our boys got stares: from checkout clerks, from shoppers, from stockers. We weaved through the store, going up and down random aisles, stopping to have the bejeweled and glittery cross-dressers interview employees and customers about the weather, their weekend plans, their favorite brand of pudding. Most people just stared at us with eyes like Tarsiers monkeys, clearly concerned for their own safety, like the boys were the characters from Rent and they were going to breath AIDS on everyone. Some people understood our sick sense of humor, though, and were clearly amused—even impressed—by our antics, letting us take their picture with our lovely she-men and kindly directing us to the douche aisle. We were all practically crawling through the store, we were on our knees laughing so hard, but the boys remained in perfect character. They were ever-so-seriously contemplating which fragrance of douche to buy, which brand of adult diaper looked the most absorbent. It was like watching our own little private SNL skit unfold unto unsuspecting spectators. The night was a huge success.

That is, until I was approached by a wildly angry man in a bright blue Meijer polo whose little plastic nametag read “Manager.”

“What do you think you’re doing!? Is that a video camera!? Turn that thing off, turn that thing off!” I did as I was told, not wanting to send him into some kind of psychotic aneurism. But my uncle came up behind me and told me to turn it back on.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Bulging-Vein-in-Forehead said in disbelief.

My uncle was calm, levelheaded, not letting this guy’s anger intimidate him. “We’re just videotaping a family trip to the grocery store. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Yes, yes there is!” Bulging Vein responded. “I am the manager of this store, and I say there is to be no videotaping of anything! It’s—it’s against our policy!”

“What policy?”

“Our policy!” I thought that vein was going to explode and I would soon be covered in this guy’s sticky brain fluid. But my uncle persisted.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t think that’s very fair. She’s just a kid, she just wants to videotape her family. You’re not gonna let her do that?”

“No, I am not!” Then began the haggling.

“Okay, so if we can’t videotape this family outing to your fine establishment, can we at least take pictures?”

“No!”

“Audio recordings?”

“No!”

“Can we sketch it in a notebook?”

“Absolutely not!” How he thought had any authority to deny sketching is beyond me. “And if you and your family don’t exit the store immediately, I’ll have to get security to show you out!” I think the vein developed a Siamese twin.

“Alright, alright,” my uncle said coolly. “We’ll make our way to the front of the store and head out. We just need to find the rest of our clan first.”

Bulging Vein(s) escorted us to the front of the store, where we found another scene going down. It seemed the boys had been refused service by a checkout clerk and were forced to use the U-Scan. To normal people, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, considering the circumstances, but my aunt was infuriated. She was screaming and yelling, the boys trying to drag her away from the checkout clerk in question, lest she rip the woman’s eyes out with her fingernails.

“This is discrimination! You can’t refuse service to paying customers just because they don’t look like you! What if they were real transvestites, huh!? Would you refuse service to them then!? You’re heartless! You’re cruel! The police are going to hear about this! Dissssscrimmmmminnnnnationnnnn!” Luckily, the boys got her out of the store before Bulging Vein(s) had a chance to step in.

We approached the exit nonchalantly, making us look like the normal ones in the situation and the employees look like the psychos. We glanced back at Bulging Vein(s) who was giving us a death stare, hands planted firmly on his hips, feet in second position. I almost asked him if he’d ever taken ballet before, but I decided to escape his wrath while there was still time.

The next day, we hooked the camcorder up to the TV and watched my recording of the event. As I had projected, the picture looked like someone who’d placed the camera in a dryer and then gave that dryer some cocaine. You could barely watch it for more than ten seconds without getting the overwhelming urge to bring up what you had for lunch. People harassed me about my obvious directorial failure, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. The memory of our epic adventure will forever be emblazoned in our minds, one of the great events in the Derby Hall of Fame. And, probably, the glitter on the boys’ cheeks will never completely wash away.

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If the devil were a woman, she'd be named Shirley.

And whoever designed WebTree would be her mate, because WebTree is an absolute abomination. When you need to read fourteen flow charts in order to understand how to schedule your classes, there's a problem.

Anyhow, here's a story I actually wrote just for this blog (aren't you proud of me?), about one of the few times I've ever been to the emergency room.
Have no fear, it's not that gruesome.




Back in the day, I was a gymnast--and a pretty stellar one, if I do say so myself. I spent the majority of my free time risking my life: flying through the air while twisted like a pretzel, swinging around a chalked-up wooden bar, doing handstands on a four-inch-wide plank of death, and running full-speed toward a stationary object--all while wearing a brightly-colored leotard with one of those embarrassing '90's scrunchies tied up in my hair. (Don't worry, back then I had some serious guns that made defying death a whole lot easier than you might think.) That gym was my second home--though the snack bar was my first kitchen--and all of my friends and coaches made it a nice little community (and, let's be real, it kept me off the streets. Without that place, I'd have probably been a 9-year-old drug dealer on the streets of surburbia--or, you know, maybe just a bookworm.) (Okay, maybe just a bigger bookworm.)
Laura was my coach at the time of the incident. She was a semi-mysterious woman who looked like Ellen Degeneres--but she didn't have Ellen's winning personality. She lived alone, so far that I knew--a few of my teammates and I played croquet at her house once and noticed no other inhabitants--and she wore a lot of purple polos. I felt about as close to her as you might feel to an estranged aunt who lives upstate. I remember that she made me cry once. We were doing a hardcore conditioning practice and I was doing push-ups the "girl way" because--well, because I was a wee child being forced to do 500 push-ups, like I was in some kind of forced-labor torture camp, so of course I was trying to take the easy way out. She bent down and started screaming in my ear about how I had to start over and do them the "right" way, how it didn't matter if I was tired, I needed to do the push-ups like everyone else. Can you imagine: a grown woman in a tacky purple polo screaming into the ear of a 7-year-old who's sobbing her eyes out and dripping snot all over the floor? She was like a Chinese Nazi, and I was the underage athlete she wanted to send to the Olympics with a fake passport. But I digress.
It was a normal afternoon at the gym. We had recently gotten a tumbling track (a long strip of red bouncy flooring that helped you get more air in your flips--totally radical), and we had been practicing mostly on that. For several practices prior, our assistant coach, some stupid college dropout named Cory, had worked with us. But I wasn't having that. Cory was an infuriating person, and I'm pretty sure the only knowledge he had of gymnastics came from the backflips he had to do to get his high school diploma. I loathed him. So, the practice before, I had "accidentally" slapped him in the face when he was spotting me on a tumbling pass. Whoopsie. My teammates had erupted in applause; it was one of my finest moments, really. Cory had stormed off like an abused puppy (but not a cute puppy, more like one of those "World's Ugliest Dog" sorry-excuse-for-a-canine creatures), and now, clearly still bitter about getting schooled by a 9-year-old girl in Spandex, he refused to work with our team on the tumbling track.
Laura told us to work on tumbling passes that we might want to use in a competition routine. The problem was, there were several options to choose from and, even as a young child, indecision was that tiny hole in my Death Star in which you could shoot and quickly demolish me. (What a terrible Star Wars reference. I apologize.) I was grappling with this indecision as I stepped up to take my turn on the track. Laura wasn't paying much attention; we were the more mature kids of the gym, so her attention was better spent making sure the younger kids didn't suffocate in the foam pit. I wasn't nervous--I had been tumbling so long that the motions were second nature to me. I could probably have done a round-off-back-handspring-layout in my sleep. That turned out to be a problem, though, when my body took off running down the track before my mind was aware of what was happening. I was about to land the round-off when I realized that I hadn't decided which kind of tumbling pass to do. A back tuck? A half twist? A pike? I had completed the back handspring when, instead of deciding to stop tumbling, like a normal person might have done, I thought, "Well, how badly could this really turn out?" The tumbling track was squishy, so no matter what choice my body subconsciously made, I thought I'd either land on my feet like a lithe kitten, or fall on my butt on the pillowy, bouncy surface. No big deal.
Unfortunately, my body caught a whiff of my brain's untimely indecision, and it followed suit. As I began flipping, I was twisting--or was I?--I was tucking--or was I?--I was piking--or was I? To have seen that flip from the sidelines must have been like watching the Super 8 train wreck manifest itself in a human body. Not even Steven Spielberg could have CGI'd that tumbling pass. It was horrific. And, of course, contrary to my naive belief, my landing did not feel like jumping backwards onto a giant roll of Angel Soft. It hurt. It crunched. I let out some kind of savage yell that was probably more like a grunt--a sound that a neanderthal would have made if he had stubbed his toe on a big stone or something.
When I sat up after my gnarly crash, I felt an excruciating pain in my left arm. I looked over at it, and one of the bones in my forearm was clearly lodged on top of the other bone. I heard my teammates gasping from the other side of the track, but I paid them no attention. "Laura!" I called, fairly casually considering the circumstances. "What?" she asked from several yards away, not bothering to look over in my direction. "Um, is this broken? Can you tell?" I wasn't sure why I was asking her that, when clearly things were not ship-shape in the arm department, but I didn't want to incite panic. She walked calmly over to me, took one look at my arm, and said, "Oh yeah. I'd say that's broken. Someone go call an ambulance, please." (She sounded no more concerned than when I had had the stomach flu and she'd told me, "If you throw up, throw up on one mat. I don't want to clean up puke trails all over the gym.") Other little girls might have wanted a more alarmed response, but I appreciated that she wasn't making a big deal out of it. Usually I enjoyed being the center of attention, doing mini vaudeville acts and eccentric monologues to amuse my peers, but right at that moment, I wanted everyone to just mind their own business. Move along, nothing to see here, just an arm that looks like a five-car pile up is trapped under my skin.
I sat there nonchalantly, gingerly holding my arm out in front of me. I wasn't crying--I'm not really a crier in general, I've never even cried at a movie (no, not even Marley & Me)--I was just breathing a little heavily. There was pain, and it certainly wasn't a particularly enjoyable sensation, but I just kind of tuned it out and focused on calming everyone else down. Someone in the lobby had called an ambulance and notified Betsy, my best friend on the team's mom, who had been working the snack bar. She came running out with a cold bottle of water, and she was thoroughly distressed. She sat on the track and pulled me into her lap, stroking my hair, like I was a little baby bird that had fallen out of the nest. It was a nice gesture and all, but it wasn't really what I was looking for. I wanted someone to give me some answers. How long do you think I'll have to have a cast? When can I come back to the gym? What's for dinner--I'm hungry?
And then a horrific realization hit me--well, horrific in the eyes of the biggest nerd to ever enter the fourth grade: I've broken my left arm. My writing arm. Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal, I would just get extensions on some assignments, or have my parents do my writing for me. But what hit me was that it was only a week before state testing was to commence. State testing! The scores of which would determine if I would go to the best middle school in the city, where I could study fancy subjects like "language arts" and the ever-ambiguous "social studies" with the best tween scholars around, or some cracker-jack-box of a middle school, where the walls were painted gray to stifle creativity and kids beat you up for walking down the wrong hallway. This thought had me deeply concerned, and it was only after I started hyperventilating about it that the tears came. Betsy and Laura exchanged comments. "Oh, I guess the shock's worn off." "Yeah, poor thing, it's probably excruciating. It's okay, sweetie, you can cry."
They didn't understand. I tried to communicate my horror to them. "State testing! Left arm! Can't write! Schools! Scholars! Graaaaaay!" It just sounded like jibberish to them. They stopped listening. "Shhh, it's okay, we called your daddy, he's coming! You'll be alright!"
A couple minutes later, the ambulance arrived, with my father only seconds behind them. The paramedics jogged over to me, sat down, and started getting out their materials. For some reason I had an Eve "oh-my-God-where-is-my-fig-leaf" moment, feeling rather scantily clad in my shiny hot pink leotard in front of these strange men. One of them looked at me--I'm pretty sure they based the Brawny logo on this guy--and he said, "No worries, little girl. We're gonna put a splint on ya and drive you over to the hospital to get you all fixed up."
Just then my father clomped over to where the circus was being conducted. He didn't really say anything, but I didn't need him to. I could tell he was getting queasy from looking at my arm--he has no stomach for injuries; as a grown man, he cried when he got a few stitches taken out--so I told him to go wait in the lobby. He didn't object.
They had finished wrapping up my arm when the Brawny man looked at me again. "Okay, you can either ride in the big, awesome ambulance with us--and, of course, we'll turn on the cool sirens and everything--or you can ride with your dad."
Though at that moment I wasn't in the mood for theatrics, I had always wondered what it might be like to ride in an ambulance. "Will riding in the ambulance cost money?"
That was not a question he was expecting. "Well . . . Yeah, I guess they do charge you for it . . . ."
"Then I'll just ride with my dad." My father is quite the cheapskate--he has enough coupons to wallpaper the Taj Mahal--so I knew he'd have griped and groaned about me taking the ambulance. That was the last thing I needed. After all, I was still trying to figure out how I was going to pass state testing when my right-handed writing looked like someone had given fingerpaints to a baboon.
To my surprise, Laura touched my shoulder and said, "I'll ride with you." Her motives for this act were unknown to me--she had three practices still in session, and I already had a parent on the scene. I think she had a crush on Brawny man.
En route to the hospital, we didn't really say much. My father was trying to find a suitable radio station for the circumstances, but he gave up and turned the radio off. We rode in silence, my brain still whirring. State testing! Scholars! Gray! I began to dramatize everything to the point of paranoia. I could see my life crumbling around me: I would certainly fail the state testing; I'd have to repeat the fourth grade; I'd have to escape gunshots and battle the reduction of my IQ at sub-par middle and high schools; I wouldn't get into college--not even community college; and I'd probably wind up dealing crack to avoid being homeless. This was my actual train of thought. Clearly I was meant to be in the theatre.
We arrived at the hospital and entered the Emergency Room doors. My mom was waiting in the office for me, filling out some paperwork. I walked over and sat by her side. She hugged me (as best she could without messing with my arm) and said one of her classic mommy lines: "What happen', dolly girl?"
"I broke my arm," I said, as if to say, "DUH, my arm's wrapped up like baby Jesus in swaddling clothes." I then looked down to notice that my fingers were the size of nice, plump Italian sausages, and they were turning the color of Laura's polo. My mom and I laughed about how ridiculous it was.
Soon, I was carted away to get an x-ray of the crippled limb poking out from my left shoulder. My mother accompanied the nurse who wheeled me into the x-ray room. The woman working the x-ray machine looked no older than eighteen, and I could tell she seriously wanted to be on The Real World. Her medical knowledge couldn't have been any larger than a Post-It note--and neither was her capacity for empathy. She jostled my poor arm all around like it was a sack of potatoes that she was trying to shove into a tight space. "I don't know why you're here, this doesn't look broken to me." That's because it's under a splint, you DUMMY, I thought to myself. I didn't think she was even competent enough to brush her teeth in the morning, much less take my x-ray. But, after several painful minutes (and an exorbitant amount of botched attempts, at which she was quite amused), I was wheeled away and into a room where I was laid out on a table.
A nurse came in with some supplies to numb my arm and give me a shot of some kind of numbing agent in my upper thigh (and I mean upper upper thigh). "Okay, you can either keep your leotard on, or we can cut it off you and put you in a gown." Hmmmm . . . Cut me out of my leotard? Absolutely not, this was one of my favorites; and she was already about to give me a shot in my butt--I did not need the added embarrassment of being derobed of my Spandex. "I'll keep the leotard."
After she turned my arm as yellow as a Lay's potato chip bag, she left and the doctor came in. At least, he said he was a doctor. This looked like no doctor I'd ever seen. He was decked out in regular Joe clothes, some jeans, a t-shirt, and one of those '90's "windbreakers", with a navy blue baseball cap covering his mussed up hair. His face looked a bit like Neil Patrick Harris' (though I had no idea who that was at the time, obviously; had I made the same correlation today, I would've gone totally fangirl), he was wet--it had been raining--and he smelled like a big pot of homemade chili. "Hey, there, I'm Dr. Borden!" he said, his face upside down from my point of view. "Sorry for the clothes, I got the call while I was having dinner at home and I rushed right over." Great. I hope you at least had time to wash that chili off your hands, mister. "We're gonna fix you right up, and get those bones in your arm back in place! But, uh, mom, dad, you're probably gonna wanna leave the room. No worries, she's in good hands." My parents and Laura, somewhat bewildered and seriously worried, left the room with hesitation. "Sorry about that, kiddo. But this might hurt, and parents usually get real upset when their babies cry." I gave him a fake half-smile. Listen, dude, I am not a baby. I could probably do more pushups than you with an elephant chillin' on my back. You're named after a brand of milk, and I'm named after one of the most ballin' Biblical figures in history. Get out of town, buddy.
He felt around on my arm for a minute, and then looked at me gravely. "Okay, I'm about to put a lottttt of pressure on this arm here, and it might hurt. I'll count to three. Ready?" Get on with it, dude. "One . . . Two . . . Three!" I felt a snap in my arm like two Legos being pulled apart. I let out a throaty little ugh. He looked at me, a little puzzled. "What, what happened? Was that it . . . ?" I asked, a little irritated at how anticlimactic it had been. "Um, yeah," he said. "You really took that like a trooper." I grinned a little bit. Told ya so.

A week later, when I had to take the state testing, I was provided with a scribe. It was pretty official, actually. She not-so-subtly tried to give me some of the answers, though I didn't need her to--and, quite frankly, she was wrong a lot of the time; I guess that's how people lose Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?--and I wrote a pretty kickass story about some bobbleheads that came to life. My life wasn't ruined after all, and I have a cool purple (in honor of Laura's polos) cast as a memento of this raucous occasion.

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I find myself upset that The Bachelor and his fiancee called it quits. Consequently, I'm also starting to question my life choices.

So I had seriously planned on writing a new story for this blog post, but after tooling around the Charlotte suburbs in 115 degree weather all day, I'm feeling rather sun-drunk--if that's a thing. (If not, I'm making it up right now.) I'll write a legitimate blog story in a couple of days when I have the time/energy/mental capacity. What I really need to do is brainstorm some ideas, which isn't easy to do when a cardboard cow is staring at you through big orange sunglasses. I promise I'll deliver a more quality form of entertainment soon.

In the meantime, however, I'll post this really short story that I wrote for my WRI101 class about one of the many escapades from my tween years. It's a little more formally written, but it's a fun little story. An appetizer for the entree that I will serve your table after I decide what to cook. (That metaphor was way too convoluted, I apologize.)

            When my brother, Mitch, was in high school, a few of his older friends introduced him to the art of “gobbling,” a high-profile neighborhood prank consisting of “borrowing” Christmas lawn decorations from as many neighbors as possible and setting them up in an unlucky target’s yard, all under the cover of night. A few weeks after Mitch’s seventeenth birthday, Christmastime arrived, and he was chosen as leader of the year’s “gobbling” mission. Naturally, my pre-teen rebelliousness inspired me to volunteer as his sidekick.

This year’s setup was to be the largest yet, and my brother’s cronies spent days sneaking a reindeer from this house, a blow-up penguin from that house, and storing them in our garage. I watched over the merchandise with a careful eye and a secret satisfaction. By the time the chosen night rolled around, I was ready for the thrill of the “gobble.”

            Less than fifteen minutes after our one o’clock arrival, my brother’s car was empty and the target’s front yard looked like Whoville after a hurricane. It was fantastic. The victim, one of Mitch’s childhood friends, was a nice enough kid with a three-legged-dog, and we were sure the display would have him chuckling for days. We admired our work for a few moments before getting back into the vehicle for a speedy—and successful—escape. I felt like a badass. My brother drove down the street casually, music blaring, as he offered me a fist bump.

            That’s when we saw the blue lights.

            “Shit,” Mitch said under his breath. “Where the hell’d he come from?”

            I hushed up, eyes growing wide, blood draining from my face. My brother pulled over, the police cruiser following.

            A flashlight tapped on the window, urging Mitch to roll it down. He obeyed, dejected. Surely we had been foiled. It was nice knowing you, Mom and Dad—we were looking at jail time.

            “License and registration,” the officer stated, rather than asked. He was a tough, leathery guy, wearing short sleeves in the freezing winter night.

            “Here you are, sir.”

            The officer lit up the car with his flashlight, staring into our pale faces.

            “Why are you kids out so late on a Tuesday night?”

            “We were just leaving a friend’s house, officer. My sister isn’t feeling well,” Mitch replied coolly. The officer flashed the light at me and I managed a fairly realistic cough, hoping to earn his sympathies. He returned the blaring light to my brother’s face. He knows, I thought. Here it comes.

            “Pop your trunk.”

            “Um, did we do something wrong?”

            “Just pop your trunk.”

            The officer was gone for only a few seconds before we heard the trunk slam shut and he reappeared at my brother’s window.

            “Alright. Where are they?”

            “Where is what, sir?”

            “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

            “I’m afraid I don’t.”

            “The baby Jesuses. Where are they?”

            We were lost. His friends had stolen a lot of property, but they never messed with nativity scenes. That wasn’t kosher. My brother didn’t answer, I suppose because he didn’t know how. The officer got angry.

            “Where are you hiding the baby Jesuses!?”

            “I’m sorry, sir, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mitch was remarkably calm; clearly, he’d dealt with law enforcement before. His innocent tone got to the officer.

            “Okay, okay. I believe you.” Only a hint of suspicion remained in his eyes. “Several baby Jesuses have been stolen from this neighborhood and placed in mailboxes around town. I’m canvassing for suspects.” I could tell this made him feel important.

            “I’m sorry to hear about that. That’s awful.”

            “Yes, yes it is.” He was obviously offended by the baby Jesus scandal. He paused for a moment before regaining his authority. “Get your sister home and in bed, kid. Have a happy holiday.”

            “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

            My brother rolled up his window, put his car in drive, and inched away from the scene. It was several minutes before either of us spoke. It would be several months before I stopped pulsing with fear at the sight of flashing blue lights.

            The next morning, the target and his three-legged dog found out they had been “gobbled.”

Mitch and I woke to find a baby Jesus in our mailbox.

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