I have my own study carrel in the library this year. This excites me to the point that I'm worried I may start dressing like Bill Nye the Science Guy and having movie nights with me, myself, and my stuffed animals.

So I’ve officially got one week of my sophomore year of college under my belt, and things are, predictably, insane. Class and meetings and homework and meetings and homework and people and homework: such is my life right now. As you may or may not have noticed, it’s been about two weeks since my last blogpost because of all the constant interferences of all the other things on my “To-Do” list, and that will probably be the case for most of the semester. However, as I am such a considerate and kindly blogger, I will do my very rootin’ tootin’ best to update the blog at least every two weeks—I mean, after all, someone’s gotta keep you entertained as you drown in books and papers, right? Feel free to harass me if I ever get past the two-week mark without posting.

Also, I just wanted to give a quick thank you to anyone and everyone who reads this blog. I’ve had several people mention it to me since I’ve been back on campus, and it’s great to know that people are out there enjoying what I write—and I hope I can continue to make you laugh!

On to the post: this is a story centered on my lameness and/or my tendency to be a freak. My sophomore year of high school, I went through an obsessive phase—and when I say “obsessive,” I’m being gentle. The two obsessions that particularly took over my life during this time were quite possibly the two worst things that anyone could ever admit to enjoying: the Twilight series and Cobra Starship. Neither of these obsessions is the subject of this blogpost, but they will probably serve as the subjects of several blogposts in the future, as they provide ample opportunity for self-deprecation. No, the obsession I’m going to tell you about deals with a little band called We the Kings—see the video below for a demonstration of their paltry talent.

In the tenth grade, I desperately wanted to be cool. In fact, I was so determined to reach this social status that being cool became my priority numero uno. (Well, I guess I should say feeling cool became my priority numero uno, because being cool isn’t really a state of existence that I could ever qualify for.) Finding a formula for “coolness” was no easy task, however, as I knew very few people whom I considered even moderately socially acceptable, much less swag-tastic. At a loss for inspiration, I turned to the one person who had always had a kind of intriguing, Paul-Newman-“I-don’t-give-a-shit” cool factor: my brother.

When we were younger, my brother and I were definitely not the chummy, “I’ve got your back” kind of siblings—we were the “let’s make fun of each other until one of us cries” kind of siblings. He once ground pepper into my eyes when I was a wee child, and during my tweens he told me that we couldn’t be friends until I had my braces removed. Despite this harsh treatment, I always looked up to him as the baller of the family (metaphorically speaking, of course; he wasn’t very good at basketball and/or any sports)—so, naturally, when I needed to learn how to be cool, I analyzed my brother: his personality, style, social activities, favorite brand of breakfast cereal, you name it. (Some call that methodology “creepy,” I call it “research.”) After a thorough investigation into the matter, one factor seemed to dominate all others in its coolness level: music.

I, like every other human being on the planet Earth, have, of course, always loved music; it’s just natural, like babies loving breast milk, dogs loving to stick their heads out of car windows, Charlie Sheen loving tiger blood. But loving music and being a music expert are two very different things, and it was this jump that I decided I needed to make in order to climb the rungs of the social bunk bed, so that I might one day lie on top. Never having been musically inclined in any way, shape, or form—trying to read music, to me, is like trying to decipher interviews with Charles Manson or trying to translate a Shakespearean soliloquy into meows so that it might be performed by my cat—I decided that, rather than becoming an expert on music myself, I would become an expert on actual experts (and I use that term loosely) of music. Hence the obsess-a-thon began.

Roughly eight months into this complete loss of self-awareness and illusion of hip-ness, as my collection of band-tees, Chuck Taylors, and skinny jeans began to skyrocket, my best friend Rachael and I traveled (i.e. were driven by my parents) to a Cobra Starship show in Columbus, Ohio, where we found an amazing new band to fall in love with: We the Kings. Now, at this point, I was already a highly-experienced, semi-professional fangirl: I spoke of band members like they were my dear friends, I held a disturbingly large amount of knowledge about their lives, I stayed up all hours of the night, desperately hoping they would respond to my MySpace messages (yes, at this point, I still used MySpace—it was my main source of creep material). I was essentially a basket case clothed in Cobra Starship memorabilia. So when I saw that eighteen-year-old, blue-eyed, lip-ringed singer with knotty red hair, the two shy, nerdy guitarist brothers, and the too-cool-for-school, slightly creepy drummer, I knew I was destined to become obsessed with them. And so I did.

Travis, Hunter, Drew, and Danny were the greatest of pals to me. They were there whenever I needed them, singing of heartbreak (which I had never experienced, but which I somehow felt that I completely understood through their pure poetry), telling me to “stay young,” making an entire song out of the word “whoa,” and, perhaps best of all, describing the romance of base jumping (or possibly of committing suicide, I never quite decided which.) I followed their respective blogs, Twitters, MySpaces, Facebooks, YouTube channels; I always knew which cities they were playing in, which of their friends (yes, I knew who their friends were) they’d bring on tour, what kind of snacks they were keeping in their fridge. I don’t think I could have been more of an expert on them even if I had lived on their tour bus and watched them sleep at night (which I’m pretty sure I fantasized about on a regular basis). Amazingly, none of this ever struck me as something to be concerned about. It was just normal life: go to school, do homework, stalk bands, get a fraction of sleep, repeat. In fact, I honestly felt cooler than I had ever felt in my life—which just goes to show you what a foggy, broken, graffiti-ed funhouse mirror we so often see ourselves in. (*steps off soap box*)

One day, after anxiously awaiting hours for We the Kings to release the dates for their upcoming, highly-anticipated (by me and Rachael, at least) “Long Hair, Don’t Care” tour, a beacon of light shown down upon my lowly, insignificant being: they were coming to Louisville. I squealed. I screeched. I flailed on the floor and foamed at the mouth like I had been bitten by a rabies-infected Chihuahua. I simply could not contain my raucous joy. I immediately texted Rachael, who was equally as excited/practically incapacitated by the news, and we purchased tickets for what would surely be the greatest Tuesday night of our lives.

The big day came and I was a wreck. What do I wear? When should we get there? Will we get to meet them? Am I absolutely positive I know all the songs by heart? Will they sing to me from the stage? Will they be my best friends? Will I pass out before I even get there? I couldn’t concentrate in school: European history, French class, English, who cares? Travis, Hunter, Drew, and Danny, pure gods among teenage guys, were going to be in my city in only a few short hours.
When I got home that afternoon, I went to work trying to plan out my outfit. I had come to notice that most girls tried to slut it up (many of whom had nothing to actually slut up) when they went to these shows, but I knew better. These guys in these bands don’t want the shallow, hot girls; they want the cool, chill girls who are pop-rock classy without really trying—a.k.a. me. So I put on some skinny jeans, some classic black Chucks, a (delightfully soft) American Apparel t-shirt, and a string of fake pearls. Yeah, that’s right, pearls. What seemed ingenious to me at the time I now realize was pretty preposterous. But, dressed to impress and driven by my father, Rachael and I headed to the venue.

The first opening act was set to start at eight, so, expecting a large crowd of people and wanting to guarantee ourselves spots close to the stage, we got there at six. We were the first fans there; actually, I’m pretty sure we were only a few minutes later to arrive than the bands themselves. Rather than feeling embarrassed, this discovery thrilled us: we were first. The venue was a shady, dilapidated shack of a building in the most white-hick-trash part of town: not the first place you’d expect a super awesome, mega-popular rock band to be playing, and definitely not a place my father was going to leave two teenage girls to wander around alone, so he decided he needed to stay for the remainder of the evening. “Just don’t hang around us when we get in there, okay?” Upon arrival at the venue, I suddenly realized something that every fangirl (or perhaps every hipster, depending on the situation) wishes, hopes, and dreams they can claim: I saw We the Kings before they were famous.

A few years earlier, my brother had played bass in a band that had had shows in some local venues. One of these shows had been in this peeled-paint sketch-house, and a little unknown band (at that time calling themselves “De Soto”) from Bradenton, Florida also happened to play a set at this show. When the memory ran through my head and I recalled the crazy, Miss-Frizzle-style hair flipping around on that stage, I had a conniption. My personal coolness level has just shot through the freaking roof, I thought to myself. Rachael was insanely jealous. I was on Cloud Nine.

As we sat in our car in the parking lot, having to wait until the venue actually opened, we realized that all of the tour buses were parked right across from us. We made very high-pitched noises, like a boiling teakettle might make during an earthquake (assuming it doesn’t get ejected from the stovetop during the calamity). We scrambled to look through the windshield, patiently awaiting any possible activity from a band member. My father was perturbed. Suddenly, two members of another favorite band of ours, The Cab, walked to the front of their bus and started jamming on a couple acoustic guitars, singing and joking and laughing. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, they’re so amazing, I’m gonna die! *squeal squeal*” We stalked them intently for several minutes, periodically pinching each other to make sure we weren’t dreaming (especially since, the week prior to the show, all of my dreams consisted of situations exactly like the one that we were in). My dad tried to point out our ridiculousness to us, but it was all for naught. We were lost in Cray-Cray Fangirl Land, and we weren’t making a trip back to reality any time soon.

At seven o’clock my dad briefly broke into our bubble to inform us that the doors to the venue were now open. I’d like to say that we leapt out of the car like professional Russian ballerinas, but I’m pretty sure we stumbled out of the vehicle, as we were practically blackout drunk with excitement. Random tour bus drivers and venue workers were puzzled, and probably rather frightened, by our behavior, but we took no notice. Must. Get. Close. To. Stage. We were indeed two of the first people through the doors, even preceding crew members who were carrying in the final pieces of equipment. We decided, of course, that no concert experience is complete without plenty of merch, so we made a bee-line for the merch tables and whipped out our wallets. Other than The Cab, we hadn’t heard of any of the opening bands, but we bought their merch anway: surely if they were opening for the musical geniuses of We the Kings, they must be at least moderately talented, and chances were good that their members were young and attractive. T-shirts? CD’s? Slap bracelets? Yes, please.

To our surprise, a couple of guys working the table for a band called Valencia started hitting on us. They weren’t particularly cute or anything, but when you’re fifteen and a twenty-year-old guy touring with bands hits on you, you get excited. We chatted with them for a while, but soon realized that more people were filling the venue, and we needed to get our spots next to the stage. We waved goodbye to the semi-hotties, shot each other an “oh em geeeeeee,” and weaved through the crowd to get up to the stage. Now, when I say “crowd,” I’m referring to the kind of crowd you’d see at a coffee-house poetry reading or a gay rights rally in rural Kentucky or a reunion of people who’ve walked on the moon (which, depending on your tendency toward conspiracies, could be zero.) There were maybe fifty people there. And I’m being generous with that estimate. It was probably more like thirty, including all the merch table workers, technical crew members, and venue operators (and, of course, my father, creepin’ in the background). This was not the turnout that we were expecting—and probably not the turnout that the band was expecting either. It just so happened that, on that same night, a band of similar make and model was playing at a more reputable venue in a hipper part of town, and this divide caused several local We the Kings fans to bail out. But Rachael and I were there, steadfast in our undying love for them. And also able to be no more than five feet from the members of each band that played that night. That right there is called strategery, my friends.

The first couple of bands played, and they were pretty good. They probably seemed even better because we were in such close proximity and could see every drop of sweat that poured off their faces and every handwritten set list and every pluck of a guitar. Throughout the first two bands’ sets, we continually saw my father in various locations in the venue. One minute he’d be in the crowd, the next minute he’d be sitting at the bar, the next minute he’d be fake-looking at merchandise, the next minute he’d be outside and peering in through a window with only his eyes visible. If my father weren’t certifiably insane, I would think he was a spy for the CIA (maybe he is and the “I-talk-to-myself-all-the-time-and-eat-Little-Debbies-in-the-bathroom” thing is all an act; who really knows).

One time when I was peering around behind us to find him, I noticed the owner of the venue stationed right where I had remembered her being a few years ago: she was right next to the bar, in her Hoveround. This was not your typical teenage-rock-show venue owner. She was old. She looked like she had bit the big one several years prior and was slowly shriveling and decaying. She had an oxygen tank connected to her power chair and she was dragging long and hard on a cigarette. She wore the angriest grimace I had ever encountered, and one look at her face made you feel like you’d just spent a week at one of those brat boot camps. God forbid if you forgot to pay for your drink at the bar or tossed a gum wrapper on the floor: she’d come at you with the ferocity of ten thousand rabid dogs and she’d feast on your guts in between smokes. She was frightening. And yet, despite how afraid I was of being kicked out and/or beaten with her oxygen tank, I couldn’t help but laugh at her. Luckily, because of all the loud music, she couldn’t hear a thing (though she probably couldn’t have heard a thing anyway).

When Valencia came on to play their set, Rachael and I discovered that the semi-hotties from the merch table were in the band. And they were looking right at us. We freaked. In fact, we were in fangirl heaven for a good twelve seconds—that is, until the band actually started playing and they were terrible. To make matters worse, one of the merch table guys was the bassist, who happened to be standing right in front of me, and he would “rock out” on his bass so hard that I was almost fatally injured several times. He would sway back and forth with such force, the neck of his bass coming dangerously close to my face each time, the sweat from his hair spraying right into my eyes. Obviously, after only a couple minutes of this, I was livid. Hey! Guy! Can’t you see me right in front of you? I’d like to keep my head attached to my body tonight, if at all possible! I attempted to get his attention, but he was “in the zone”—or maybe he just couldn’t hear me, but I refuse to believe that as I was yelling almost directly into his ear—to no avail. Luckily, I got into a pretty solid rhythm of ducking whenever he swung his bass at me, to the point where it kind of looked like I was dancing, rather than retreating from constant attacks by a sweaty bassist. (It could be my imagination, but I’m pretty sure other people started imitating my duck-and-lean dance, so I must have looked pretty awesome.) I honestly don’t remember any of the songs that they played or any of the lyrics—except for the term “back door,” which was somehow a part of a song, and for which I could still, to this day, sing you the correct notes. I am also somehow still on their email list, though I have officially opted out approximately twelve times.

When The Cab was about to come on, we were mega excited. The members of The Cab hadn’t even graduated from high school yet—meaning fantasies about dating/marrying/having children with them were actually kind of realistic. (Okay, maybe “realistic” is the wrong term; probable? appropriate? less creepy? Yeah, one of those.) However, we were deeply disappointed when only two of the five members walked onto the stage to play their set. It turns out that, because there was a crowd virtually the size of Lichtenstein, they wanted to give the other three guys a break and just play an acoustic set. This actually ended up being more enjoyable than expected—again, most likely because they were sitting only slightly out of arm’s reach (probably a good call on their part). They joked and played around with us, taking requests for songs that included “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid and the Friends theme song. Needless to say, we fell even more deeply in love with them, and our stalking of them spiked immediately following their performance.

Finally, We the Kings came on. I screamed and sang so loud that I practically lost my voice. I jumped up and down like I was the National Double-Dutch Champion. I made eye contact with every member of the band, several times each. I sweated right through my American Apparel tee and constantly got choked by my string of fake pearls. It was pure bliss.

After the show, my dad was more than ready to leave—but Rachael and I had other plans. “We want to meet Travis, dad! We’re waiting until he comes out here! So just hold on!” My stomach filled with every known species of butterfly. My heart pounded like it was made of igneous rock that had formed from the lava flowing through my blood. Travis. Clark. I’m going to meet Travis Clark. The words rang in my head, but I couldn’t process them; I was too overtaken by panic. What will I say? What will I ask? Will he think I’m stupid? Will he think I’m creepy? Can we get a picture? Before I had time to compose myself, he waltzed in through the back door. We were essentially the only people around who seemed to be waiting to meet him, so we cautiously approached him. “You go first!” “No, you go first!” “No, you go talk to him!” “No, you go say hi!” We ended up in front of him, awe-struck, not really knowing what to say. He put on a big grin.

“Hey, there, ladies! Did you like the show?”

“Yeah, oh my god, we loved the show!”

Cool it on the oh-my-gods, self! Get it together!

“I mean, yeah, the show was totally awesome. You guys really rocked out.”

 You guys really rocked out?  Did I seriously just say that? What is wrong with me?

“You guys are all decked out in blue! I like that! Blue is my favorite color!”

This is pathetic. I can’t bring myself to say anything coherent so we’re talking about his favorite color—which, being a thorough creeper, I already knew?

“Cool. Yeah, I love blue. It’s such a great color.”

I’m sorry, what’s my IQ again? Fourteen? Okay, just checking.

“Um, would you guys like a picture?”

“Yeah, that would be great!”

We pounced on a passerby to have her take the photo. He wrapped his sweaty arms around us, gave a big smile, and said, “Thanks so much for coming out tonight! Glad you liked the show!” And then he was gone.

I can’t say I blame him for getting out of that forest of awkward before we started drooling. I probably would have done the same thing in that situation. And yet I was deeply wounded that he had hurried off so quickly. Travis! Come back! Love me! Hold me! Sign my forehead!

We left the venue and walked to the car in a daze. We had just met a celebrity—and not just any celebrity, a cool, gorgeous, talented ROCKSTAR. It was too much for our tiny bodies to handle. Our systems shut down as soon as we hit the backseat. In my deep REM slumber, I tried to fathom how many coolness points this night would earn me. And even though no one at school the next day had any idea who I was talking about, I wore my We the Kings shirt around proudly, feeling cooler than I had ever felt in my life—and realizing that feeling cool is really what it’s all about anyway.

I continued to stalk (um, I mean, keep loose tabs on) We the Kings and The Cab following that concert. A few months later, after seeing them at Warped Tour, we met the guitarist and had our picture taken with him, too. And though I have grown out of this obsessive phase of my life (mostly), and I now consider the bands that I once loved to be sorry excuses for good music, I still love to bop to some occasional We the Kings or Cobra Starship, remembering how Travis Clark almost proposed to me (we all know he was just being coy, let’s be real).

Travis

Hunter

 

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My dad: "This sorbetto is the consistency of spackle! I don't want to eat this! *takes another bite*"

Also, I'm pretty sure "sorbetto" isn't a real word.
Addendum: Okay, I actually just looked it up. It is a real word, but it means "water ice," which really doesn't make any sense. C'mon, Italians (pronounced: "Eye-tal-yens")!

I can't believe I'm returning to Davidson in a week. Insane in the membrane, as our great philosopher Flava Flav would say.

Anyway, this story, as a warning, is gross. And I'm not saying that to be cute. It's gross. And embarrassing. But really, at this juncture of my life, I could care less about embarrassing myself, because self-deprication is where the humor's at. So just consider this your "Strobe lights will be used in this performance: epileptics beware" sign.





I get motion sickness extremely easily. I also get boat-sick, car-sick, airplane-sick. Basically, if my body is put into motion by anything other than myself, I'm in trouble. I guess you could say I have a pretty weak stomach, but that would be an understatement; my tummy is about as strong as an ant (sure, some ants can carry up to a thousand times their own body weight, but that's only about two-tenths of a pound, so it's really not that impressive; suck it, ants). This being the case, I do my best to avoid amusement park rides, exorbitantly long car trips, floating around on water, and just generally any activity that involves spinning around in circles at a high speed (e.g. star tripping, chasing my own tail, etc.) Something that exacerbates this motion-sick issue is food; if there's food in my stomach, especially if it's sweet or heavy (e.g. honey buns, lead, etc.), my chances of turning green (not Elphaba Green, more like Asparagus Green; consult your Crayolas if necessary) increase tenfold. This information about myself has taken me years to acquire (a tad bit ironic, I suppose), however, so the sixth-grade me wasn't quite in the loop on this whole bidness (read: business).
It was a seemingly normal morning for sixth-grade me. I awoke at 5:00 a.m.--I'm a morning person; like an "I-might-secretly-be-85-years-old" kind of morning person--and went through my morning routine without missing a beat. Routines are what keep me sane. If you asked me to sweep a chimney, prick my eyes with thorns, and wear navy and black together in the same outfit, I'd look at you like you were a psycho; but, if you asked me to do those things every day, in the form of a routine, I'd be on board. I realize that's kind of bizarre, but so is the idea that a giant mutant bunny lays colorful eggs full of candy, and yet this is what we tell our children.
But I digress.
I bounded down the stairs in my house, backpack in hand, to make myself some breakfast. Usually "making myself breakfast" involved me pouring some Lucky Charms and milk in a bowl or popping a chocolate chip Pop-Tart, both of which are practically pure sugar and neither of which are particularly filling. But clearly I wasn't about to take the five minutes required to microwave myself a scrambled egg, and I certainly wasn't going to eat breakfast at school--I don't even think the stuff they served there could be categorized as edible (in fact, I distinctly remember an incident where a boy managed to saw through a piece of tough plastic with one of the school's "chicken" nuggets.) So I usually settled for the boring cereal and Pop-Tart routine.
But when I rounded the corner to the kitchen that morning, I saw one of the most magnificent sights a child can see: a bag of mini chocolate donuts. Now, I'm obsessed with donuts; how I'm not eight hundred pounds and a potential contestant for Biggest Loser is beyond me, because I eat donuts like it's my job. Put a donut in front of me and my eyes will light up like you've just told me I get to meet Alex Trebek. If you want to poison me, do it with donuts (like that crazy grandma from Flowers in the Attic), because I will not, under any circumstances, be able to resist its doughy, powdery, gooey charms. Needless to say, that bag of minis never stood a chance; I must have eaten at least ten or twelve of them, only stopping because it was time to go catch the bus. I'm not even sure I was really enjoying the donuts; it was more like some kind of Pavlovian response: see donut bag, eat donuts. Simple as that. Had I been able to think rationally during this hypnosis I was under in the presence of the baked treats, I would have thought, "Now maybe eating donuts until I'm sick to my tummy right before I go off to school isn't such a good idea." But alas, the Fates had me right as they wanted me: chock-full of chocolatey donuts. And off I went to the bus stop.
Standing next to the road in the dim light of dawn, I didn't feel too bad. Sure, my stomach was like a basketball (or probably more like a basketball player) lodged in my tiny abdomen, but other than that minor discomfort, I was A.O.K. The bus pulled up, I boarded and awkwardly found a seat (how else can you find a seat on a bus but awkwardly?) and we were off. That bus was a bit like riding around in The Twilight Zone: strange things happened, strange people occupied the seats, strange drivers curbed every corner. My mom always laughs because, almost everywhere I go, I see someone who rode this bus with me. I could be in the jungle in central Africa and happen to pass that guy with the behavioral problems who always wore a camo hoodie, even when it was ninety degrees outside (he would obviously be wearing it in the jungle as well). It's just one of those eerie things.
Naturally, the bus was a great place to do some grade-A people-watching--which is exactly what I was doing that morning. Oh wow, the gothic girl dyed her hair hot pink; I bet her mom is wildly supportive. I think that guy's sleeping with his eyes open; it looks like he's droo--oh, yup, he's definitely drooling. Is that boy holding a Choco Taco wrapper? Who eats Choco Tacos at 6:30 in the morning!? I had plenty of material to keep this up until we arrived at the bus depot, where we'd switch to the buses that would take us to our respective schools (kind of like a two-stop flight with a janky airline). Luckily, I didn't have to switch buses, as the same bus carried me to my final destination, so I just prepared my seat for the next batch of hooligans.
You see, it was fairly early on in the school year, but bus cliques had already begun to form, and there was one girl in particular who was trying to make my life miserable. Okay, she wasn't actually trying to make my life miserable, but she was having that kind of effect nonetheless. She sat by me every single morning; I got no reprieve from her chatter. We had gone to the same elementary school but hadn't been BFF's or anything; now that we boarded the same public school transportation vehicle, however, she acted like I was Paris and she was Nicole (circa the "we're like totally awesome girlfriends for life--wanna snort coke together?" era, not the "I can't believe I was ever friends with that heiress skank--let me go sleep with her boyfriend" era). There were a few other kids on the bus who we socially interacted with (but whom I would not have referred to as my friends), and this seat-hogger thought we were the coolest group of sixth-grade cronies ever to grace those pleather seats. Little did she know, I really just wanted to bash her over the head with my L.L. Bean. I made this clear to her one day when she boarded the bus and saw all of my baggage occupying the seat next to me. "Oh my god, Christine, come on, move your stuff!" she laughed. I didn't budge. I glared at her. "Christine! Seriously!" "There are enough seats on this bus for everyone to sit by him-or-herself. I'm merely exercising my property rights." She tried to move my stuff herself, I yanked it back from her. She looked at me in disbelief before kindly settling herself in the seat next to me. And so it had been for the couple of weeks leading up to the morning of the chocolatey donuts.
Five minutes after we had departed from the depot, I started feeling queasy. I pulled myself out of the conversation about how awesome Lisa Frank folders are and curled up in a ball in my seat, closing my eyes. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. I kept telling myself. We'll be at school before I can even bat an eyelash! I'll be fine. Just listen to the chatter of the high school guys sitting behind me, talking about Nair-ing their chests. That's hysterical, right? Picture how ridiculous that must look, and by no means whatsoever picture food.
But thinking about not thinking about it only made it worse. Little dancing chocolatey donuts began doing leaps in my head, performing synchronized swimming routines in bowls of milk, re-enacting scenes from the movie Chocolat. I couldn't escape them; they were everywhere. I had to open my eyes, but whenever I did, the visual evidence that the bus was in motion made my stomach turn. After a few minutes, I finally accepted my destiny: I was going to puke.
I sat up and began analyzing the situation like I was back on my fourth-grade Problem Solving team. Okay, what am I going to throw up into? Should I tell the bus driver? No, we're on the interstate, and I don't want to risk being hit by a truck going seventy miles per hour just to do a little upchucking. Besides, bus drivers are generally unsympathetic and spiteful, and who needs that when they're about to spew? Not me. Alright, so I'm gonna have to handle this on my own. That's fine. I searched through my backpack to find a suitable receptacle for the half-digested chocolatey donuts. My lunch sack? That should work; isn't this what they have people puke in on airplanes? Yeah, this should do. I'll just throw up into this and then dispose of it on my way to school. No one even has to know.
There were a few problems with this plan, the first of which being that throwing up is kind of loud, and it's a sound that you can't really mistake for something else. I bent myself over in my seat and heaved the contents of my stomach into the paper bag, and when I sat up, the entire bus was staring at me, disgusted. I tried to pretend like nothing had happened, but some of it had gotten on my face, in my hair, and on my clothes, as it was difficult to keep the entire trajectory of my puke session directly in the sack. I gave a half-hearted smile and gently wiped my face. After a few seconds, people went back to their iPods, Gameboys, and plagiarism, and I thought I was scot-free. I began trying to wipe the spew spatter from my jeans and blouse, combed it out of my hair, and removed it from the various locations on my face that it had managed to soil. On the plus side, I was completely rid of my nausea--which, I suppose, makes sense; you can't really be nauseous when there's absolutely nothing left in your stomach. Maybe this was going to turn out better than I had thought.
And then I was struck by panic. The bottom of the paper bag was now thoroughly soggy, and it was threatening to bust open, letting my puke spill all over the bus floor--and me. How could I not have seen this coming? Clearly paper gets soggy when put in contact with liquid. The tap-dancing donuts in my head must have impaired my judgement. Drat it! I needed to get rid of this bag soon, or I'd be covered in my own vomit and forever be known as the girl who puked all over herself on the bus--and in middle school, labels like that stick. I was so close to revamping my reputation from elementary school as the "crazy smart girl" (attempting to change it to the slightly more socially acceptable "quiet smart girl") and a blow like this could be devastating to my progress. Think, Christine! Think!
I briefly considered carrying it up to the makeshift garbage receptacle (a.k.a. a Kroger bag hung from the emergency brake), but that would bring me to the attention of nearly everyone on the bus (as I was located very close to the rear of the vehicle), and the driver would probably yell at me. So that was no good. And then a brilliant idea hit me: I can toss it out the window!
If I could just get the window open, I could litter my chocolatey waste onto the interstate without a soul noticing. It was really the perfect solution. I briefly congratulated myself on my genius before trying to figure out what to do about the window. Bus windows must be opened with two hands, and I couldn't even spare one--if I had let go of any part of the bag, it would have immediately exploded everywhere. I needed an accomplice. I looked across the bus at the seat-hogger.
"Hey . . . Could you maybe open the window for me?"
She stared at me in both contempt and disgust.
"Oh my god, no." She turned away.
I looked around at the riders in my immediate area. Quietly, I mumbled, "Can someone open my window for me? I can't get it."
No one responded. In fact, people moved farther away from me. I think they could sense what I was going to do, and they wanted no part of it. I felt somewhat ashamed at my spew-disposal plan, but I really had no time for self-loathing because, unless I got that stupid window open, this vomit was going to be projectile. I returned my gaze to the girl across from me. I could tell she could feel my eyes on her, but she continued to stare straight ahead. "Hey! Come on . . . Please?" She remained still.
And then I got desperate: "If you don't open this window for me, I'm going to throw this bag at you." Had I said it menacingly, she would have known I was lying. But I said it calmly, unemphatically, like it was just a plain old matter of fact. A look of horror seized her. She took in my deadly serious face. She shot her little patootie up like a rattlesnake attacking Little Bunny Foo Foo, promptly opened up my window, and returned to her seat.
"Thanks."
Without wasting any time, I raised the bag o' puke toward the window, readying it for a launch. I wanted to watch for an ideal opportunity to release it into the wild, but I knew I had no time for that kind of luxury. I let go of the bag and, not a second later, heard a loud splat.
I had nailed the windshield of a black Honda Civic.
Oh. My. God.
I watched the driver pull over to the shoulder of the interstate before we drove out of view. To this day I think about how that poor guy must have reacted to such a horrific incident. I often wonder if he saw my face as I fired the missile from the window, and if he's going to see me around town one of these days and beat me with crowbar. I'm always subconsciously on the lookout for any behavior that might tip me off to this guy's revenge.
I put the window back up and tried to compose myself. The girl across the aisle couldn't even look at me, but everyone else seemed to have gone back to their own business. Save for a few victims along the way, I pulled this plan off without a hitch.
When I walked into homeroom that morning, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I had solved quite a conundrum all on my own, and none of these people would ever know the turmoil my poor tummy had gone through that morning. I settled into my desk, getting out my unicorn notebook and shooting star pencil, ready to conquer the day's challenges.
"Hey, Christine, you've got some brown stuff on your cheek. I think you might have a little on your ear, too."
I froze.
"Oh, huh, that's weird. I better go to the bathroom and wash it off."
I bolted to the little girls' room, cleaned myself up, and waited long enough for the blood to drain from my cheeks.
That was a close one.
And, while I didn't become known as the girl who puked on the bus and threw it out the window, I did become this ridiculous, pleather-clad atrocity, so I guess it wasn't much better:

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I guess people in Ohio are averse to someone singing and attempting to dance the moonwalk while shopping at Kroger.

Because I definitely got some weird looks yesterday. But that's okay, because clearly they were just jealous of my white girl swag.

Before I get into this blogpost, I would just like to mention that I found out last night that a friend of mine from a summer program a few years ago passed away yesterday morning: Will Mallory. I'm sure he'll be missed by a lot of people, and I hope his family and close friends can find peace somehow. It's things like this that make you realize how quickly your life can be taken away from you. So carpe diem, my friends; say what you need to say and do what you need to do today.

Anyway, this blogpost is about a debacle that occurred around my senior prom regarding a certain mode of transportation . . .




I've never really been one to get overly excited about school functions. (Okay, yes, there was that awkward period of my life where I was a member of my middle school's dance team and, as such, got pretty jazzed about basketball games and pep rallies; but that age of embarrassment simply doesn't count.) I rarely attended sporting events in high school, I wasn't a huge proponent of "spirit week" (I had about as much spirit as a dead Ben Stein), and I'm pretty sure I only had one article of clothing affiliated with my school's name and/or mascot. I'm not exactly positive why I wasn't into that whole high school "experience"; most likely it's because I'm generally not an excitable person, and I also wasn't a fan of about 90% of my fellow students. But, for whatever reason, I was pretty pumped up for senior prom.
Junior prom had been a lot more fun than I had expected it to be (though it had been held in a place that looked like it should house terrorists being tortured for information and/or Martha Stewart's holding cell at Camp Cupcake), and senior prom was supposed to be at least a hundred times more awesome--no hyperbole intended. Somehow, though, my prom group (henceforth referred to as The Posse) hadn't really prepared for this raucous event in any way, shape, or form. It was approximately two weeks until the fest o' fun was to occur, and we didn't have much of an idea of how our evening would play out.
So my mother and I, being the hyper-obsessive and "planny" people that we are (spontaneity is not a virtue we hold dear and schedules are my adult pacifier--not that I need one of those or anything), took the liberty of arranging the evening. We chose to do the stereotypical prom picture sesh (I mean, really, if you're going to pay $500 for a dress you're only going to wear one time, the least you can do is take pictures of it) at my friend Megan's house; we chose a classy (and by "classy" I mean they serve cold soup and their patrons rarely arrive before 9:00 p.m.) Italian ristorante for dinner and made the appropriate reservations; we decided to have the (also stereotypical) prom sleepover at my friend Caroline's house. All the necessary decisions had been made and plans had been drawn up--all, that is, except for one major detail: the limo.
We called place after place after place after place and couldn't find a single limo that was available for the evening of our prom. Apparently there were several other proms stealing our school's thunder that night, and, because we had waited so long, we were essentially up Shit Creek without a paddle. I was infuriated. We couldn't drive ourselves to the senior prom; please, that was so junior prom. I mean, if we couldn't have a limo, we might as well have rolled up to prom on some big red tricycles with Pokemon cards in the spokes (of course, I say that like it's embarrassing, and yet I just acquired a stuffed Squirtle and squealed with pleasure). Anyone who was anyone who was anyone was going to be showing up to senior prom in a slick black limousine--and okay, we weren't exactly a group of "anyones," but if those buffoons got to ride to prom in limos, we wanted to, too.
Desperate, we started looking beyond the first page of Google results (which, as we all know, is the only page with legitimate links that are actually remotely relevant to your search query). Around page eleven--where we were starting to graze in "super spam male-enhancement-ad" territory--we found a company that claimed to have an attainable limo for the evening of our prom: the Community and Aztec Limousine Service. Hallelujah; we were saved (like Spiderman rescuing Mary Jane from peril kind of "saved", not like "dunk me in water and it's like I was re-emitted from the womb" kind of "saved")! We called the company right away and requested a black Town Car stretch limo--because party buses are Jank Central, and those big SUV limos are for people who are trying to compensate for their disproportionately small organs (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about their kidneys). I was so thrilled that we would be cruising through the evening in style--though, because of steep costs, we could only afford to take it to dinner, to prom, and then back to Megan's. Regardless, The Posse was so ready to class it up at Prom X ("X" being the Roman numeral ten, because we're ultra-hip).
The evening finally arrived and I was running late; it's amazing how much time it takes to put on a dress and pay someone to stick your hair in a bun. I guess I hadn't planned very well. Rolling up to Megan's house, however, I was one of the first people to have arrived. This is extremely typical Posse behavior; had we not been meeting at Megan's house, she probably would have been the latest of them all. The limo was to arrive at six-thirty, and we were supposed to start pictures at five-thirty--in reality, we began the photo session around six-oh-five. We exchanged corsages and boutonnieres with our dates, watched our parents gossip, tried to get our cameras to cooperate--but mostly, we were getting psyched about our limo ride.
Around six-twenty-five, the most outrageous vehicle I have ever seen came charging down Megan's street. It was a monstrous Escalade limousine, which was bad enough, but to make matters worse, it was the exact color of Pepto-Bismol. We all pointed and laughed, feeling sorry for the poor saps who would be carted to their prom in that ridiculous excuse for an automobile. If Barbie were Ke$ha, this is the mode of transportation she would park outside her Dream House. We all started singing that obnoxious Pepto Bismol song--"Nausea, heartburn, indigestion," etc.--discussing how funny it would be if that were actually our limo. How preposterous!
And then it parked outside of Megan's house.
Well all stood there, confused, looking around at each other like we had just caught Steve Jobs using an Android.
Dead silence. Then: "Megan . . . Are any of your neighbors having their prom tonight, too . . . ?"
"I . . . I don't think so . . . "
"M--maybe he's got the wrong house . . . ?"
"Yeah . . . That's gotta be it." (Lots of audible ellipses, obviously.)
And then we saw it: on the rear window of the hooker-in-vehicle-form, there was a big cursive logo that read "Community and Aztec Limousine Service."
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
My mom doubled over with laughter.
"Ha ha, Mom, very funny. But seriously, where's our real limo?"
She kept laughing.
"Mom, where is our limo!? We really need to get going!"
She wiped the tears out of her eyes, dry heaving because she couldn't get enough air. She managed to get out, "I--think--this is--really--your limo" before busting out into another bout of laughter.
It wasn't long before the rest of The Posse joined her chortle-fest. But me, I was enraged, like Barry Bonds all jacked up on steroids, like a Belieber after watching Wizards of Waverly Place.
"Mother, what are we going to do!? This is not what we ordered! We can't take this thing to prom! It's the Pepto Bismol-mobile!" I went into some kind of hysterical caniption, complete with eye twitching and convulsions, like an eight-year-old on Five Hour Energy; part of me wanted to laugh because I realized how ridiculous a situation we were in, but at the same time, I was horrified at the thought of actually having to be seen in this visual strain of chlamydia.
My mom finally recovered enough to start attempting to mend our predicament. "Okay, honey, let's just go talk to the driver. Maybe they can send a different limo out here. Maybe there was a mix-up."
"I'm not doin' it--I want no part of this. You go talk to 'em!" I seethed. It didn't help that I couldn't walk two steps without tripping over my dress or slipping out of one of my huge stilettos; I couldn't even pace around angrily--my fiery mass of fury had to be tightly contained in my tiny little body. It was painful.
My mom returned from the vehicle. "The driver said that the limo we wanted wasn't available, so we were 'upgraded.'" Upgraded? If you call switching from champagne to grape Kool-Aid mixed with Snooki's vomit an "upgrade," then yes, our limo situation was seriously ameliorated. "But she called the limo company and they said they would send a different limo to pick you guys up from dinner. So don't worry, you only have to take this to the restaurant!"
Okay, fine. After all, what were the chances that we'd be seeing anyone we knew (or at least cared that we knew) at this uppity cold-soup establishment? And, really, it's not like we had much of a choice in the matter. We had collectively paid over a thousand dollars for this evening's limo experience, and we weren't about to let that get wasted.
We boarded the funhouse-on-wheels and took our seats. The stench was almost unbearable; it smelled like a hobo had been sleeping in there after swimming laps through the garbage dump and bathing in a sewer--which, given the current sketchy actions (and the Google search: page 11) of the limo company, was entirely plausible. There were also several mysterious white stains on the seats and windows--and when I say "mysterious," I mean we knew exactly what they were, but couldn't allow ourselves to face that unsanitary reality. Just sitting in that germ-vacation-oasis for the five minute ride to the restaurant made me feel like I needed to shower ten times a day for the next week. Thank God we only have to stand this for a short amount of time, I kept thinking to myself.
We entered the restaurant and announced our arrival to the chuckling hostesses. Clearly they had witnessed us roll up in our bright pink panzer, and clearly this is not the kind of behavior their usual clientele participated in. We ignored them.
We shared a delicious meal, and our waiter was actually secretly really chill behind his snooty veneer (but, I mean, the guy's gotta get tips somehow, right?) As we were nearing the end of our meal, we sent one of the guys out the back door to check and see if our limo was there. Because we had arrived a bit behind schedule, we were running a little late leaving and wanted to give the driver a heads up. The waiter had mixed up all of our checks--and even given us someone's from another table entirely--so we were sorting them out when our friend re-entered the restaurant and hesitantly approached our table. Since we were making a commotion out of swapping receipts and arguing over who got what and counting money, it took us a minute or two to notice him standing there, looking sheepish. When he finally caught our attention, our table got hushed.
"Was our limo out there?"
"Uh . . . yeah."
"Did you tell the driver we were running late?"
"Uh-huh."
"And he said it was okay?"
"Mmhmm."
We weren't really sure what his problem was, but we finished paying our checks and leaving tips before we rose to accompany him outside. When we exited the restaurant, we saw two vehicles parked on the street: one was a black Town Car stretch limo, and one looked like a really, really big white van (what I like to refer to as a "rapist van," fully-loaded with candy in the back and driven by a guy with three teeth who's looking for his lost puppy.) "The black one's ours, right?" I asked, starting my treacherous stiletto journey in that direction.
"Uh . . . no . . . That white van thing . . . That's ours."
We all looked at him quizzically.
"You're joking, right? Dude, that's not funny. Let's go." I continued walking toward the black Town Car.
"Um, no, I'm really not kidding. The white one's ours."
I came to a halt and glared in the direction of the big white van. Sure enough, on the side of the vehicle, the big cursive words "Community and Aztec Limousine Service" could be discerned.
What. The. Hell.
I started to enter another bout of hysteria, but the driver wasn't too happy that we were late, and I wasn't about to deal with him, so we boarded the Super Kidnapper 5000--only to find a nice, shiny stripper pole adorning the center of the automobile. I immediately dialed my mother. "MOM . . . VAN . . . PARTY BUS . . . STRIPPER POLE." I couldn't even speak in coherent sentences; I was pretty sure I was foaming at the mouth; and, like a bad horror movie, everything in my vision was blood red. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the fact that we were riding in a mobile stripper bar, but I could not be amused. My mom was equally as infuriated, and she told me she was going to call the limo company and sort this whole thing out. "Nothing like that is going to pick you up from the prom, I promise," she said to me.
I looked at the time on my phone. Well, it was thirty minutes past the time that the prom was supposed to start, so at least there wouldn't be huge crowds of people lingering outside the venue to witness our arrival in this Jenna Jameson on wheels (who am I kidding? Jenna Jameson is way more sophisticated than that thing. It was more like Ron Jeremy on wheels). I attempted to joke and laugh with my friends, one of whom tried to do a dance around the stripper pole, failing miserably and falling into several people's laps. It was kind of a little bit funny.
That is, until we arrived at prom and were helped out of that stupid jalopy by our vice principal. And it was very clear that he was judging us, hardcore. To make matters worse, there were roughly two hundred people outside of the building waiting to get into prom, and they all stopped and stared at us, snickering and pointing. I kept waiting for Ty Pennington (dressed like a cholo) to pop out and yell "Yo, move dat bus!" I was mortified.
Prom itself was really pretty lame. There were some yummy sweets and a couple of chocolate fountains, but the deejay only played super-thug-life rap that you couldn't really dance to, and grinding is something I have never had any desire to partake in--you look like you're packed too closely on a subway and the only thing you have to hold onto for balance is someone else's pelvis. In case you've never had Georgia Ringle teach you sex ed: if you want to have sex, you should probably do it with your clothes off, and, unless you're pursuing an amateur porn career, you probably shouldn't do it in public. We basically just kind of stood around at the edge of the dance floor, making our own fun, as we always do--Posse style.
Finally, we made the joint decision that it was time to leave, putting an end to our misery.
After searching frantically for our shoes in the coat check room--which was about as organized as the Tasmanian Devil's sock drawer--we were all so ready to get back to Megan's so we could change and head to IHOP for some post-prom pancakes. I could almost taste the syrupy goodness already.
We evacuated the venue and began searching for our limo--a difficult task considering the high volume of limos parked outside. It was an especially impossible feat considering we had no idea what form our pick-up limo might take--it was really just a guessing game. Essentially, it was like searching the Room of Requirement for something but not knowing what it is you're looking for (I mean, at least Harry knew he needed a tiara, and luckily no toddler-pageant-princess jumped him for it--except Draco, but he didn't succeed). We walked up and down Limo Avenue on our aching feet several times, never spotting our limo.
After about twenty minutes, most of the limos had left the premises, and we still couldn't find ours. I called my mom once again, at this point too tired and fed up to be all that angry, and she called the limo company who said the driver was already there. Of course. A not-so-friendly man came up to us and asked us if we were the Noah party, and how could we have kept him waiting so long, and we really needed to go. I wanted to cry, but, seeing as I only expel my tears for truly worthy occasions such as the midnight release of the fourth book in the Twlight series, I refrained. We boarded the vehicle he ushered us to, a big black GMC Topkick (basically an ignorant, beer-bellied, WWF fan in automobile form), barely even having enough energy to comment upon its anti-classiness (or should I say "classy" with a "k"?)
The rest of the evening was enjoyable enough. Instead of IHOP, which was busier than a Ben and Jerry's on Free Cone Day (or, similarly for those without a B&J nearby, busier than a Milk, Bread, and Eggs store when there is a 20% chance of snow in Louisville), we ended up at Waffle House, (or, more appropriately termed, a "WaHo") which just perpetuated the level of chic attained by our evening. Then we went back to Caroline's and, instead of getting crunk and playing flip cup until blackout like most of our classmates, we played Apples to Apples until the wee hours of the morning. It was beautiful.

We attempted to get a refund from the Community and Aztec Limousine Service for ruining the most important evening of our young high-school lives, but they gave my mother some serious Bon Qui Qui attitude and, according to some bogus contract we signed, we had no right to complain. If only we had looked at the Google Places profile for their company, we would have seen the warnings to "Beware" and "NEVER EVER EVER use this limo service," and especially how they were the "WORST PART of my wedding." But, alas, now we know, and we can go leave one of those cautionary notes ourselves. Generally speaking, the evening was enjoyable; but it will forever be known as the Night of the Pepto Bismol-mobile. See picture below. Then imagine me in it. With an angry face. (*Note: jacuzzi was not active at time of debacle)

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