Today driving home from school I heard a KMFDM and a Ministry song on the Flashback Lunch thing on the alterna-crap station.
Hearing that stuff always immediately transports me back to the last couple of years of high school and my first year of college. Mandy, of course, always figures prominently in each of these nostalgic trips. We complained so much about how unhappy we were, how bored we were, how everything was stupid, but I think if we're really honest with ourselves, we can admit that those years were awesome. I really miss them sometimes. Those years of figuring out who we were, and being allowed to be really obnoxious about it, and trying on so many hats.
We thought nothing of spending an entire evening dying our hair crazy colors and putting together outfits for the weekend of going to a rave, or going to see some crappy punk rock band at the dilapidated skate station in Fayetteville. We planned whole weekends and road trips to Tulsa, Dallas, Kansas City, Little Rock, Springfield, and Memphis to go see bands like KMFDM, Thrill Kill Kult, REM, Depeche Mode, Reverend Horton Heat, Social Distortion, Nine Inch Nails. Wherever we went we would seek out after-hours clubs that would let in kids under 21 so we could continue dancing through the night until 3 or 4 in the morning.
We got lost once in Kansas City for hours in the middle of the night. I think it was that same trip where those dudes at IHOP threatened to kill us in the parking lot, and they had guns, and the cops were called and it was a big deal. We got yelled at outside Springfield at a Waffle House for singing Roy Orbison songs at the top of our lungs on the way home from a Bush(!!) show. My friend Sean and I drove all night long, two nights in a row, just to go to a big warehouse rave once in Memphis. Whole weekends were also spent just cruising through Fayetteville, desperately searching for something to do, never realizing that the cruising and searching was the point. We blared music in our cars, attended more parties in people's backyards or out in the middle of nowhere than I care to count, got kicked out of IHOP multiple times for commandeering the entire smoking section with our friends and not buying anything but coffee. We lied and told our parents we were at so-and-so's house and then went camping at the lake with 10 other kids, usually sleeping in our cars, sometimes going skinny-dipping if it was warm enough.
I don't know how we possibly thought we were bored. We never stood still for a moment.
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And sometimes, some douchebag gets all mad because his mommy and daddy won't fund his next trip to Germany to study at the high altar of German techno, so he gets mad and yells at you in a club parking lot because you eat french fries with your fingers instead of with a fork.
The last two days I've been listening to a lot of 90s Cure. Talk about some memories. Talk about drinking Zima while swimming around naked in an apartment complex pool in Dallas. And talk about some dirty old man coming up to the pool, trying to get a glimpse. Talk about being 19 years old, which is old enough to pee all by yourself.
Ah, Wes. I almost added that story of your fight with him in Tulsa, but figured it would require too much backstory.
We had some fun in his hot tub that one night, though, remember? We ate macaroni and cheese and white wine and made shitty White Russians. And of course, all piled into the hot tub naked. Who was the exchange student there that night that tried to get in Ellen's pants? Remember that?
Man, I'm sitting here laughing right now, just thinking about it.
I thought it was douchebag's roommate or something trying to get into her pants. Maybe not? White Russians always make me think of that night.
Remember the outfit Megan used to wear with her "sinner" t-shirt, black pleather miniskirt, red fishnets, and white lace up boots? Man, we kept Merry-Go-Round in business (until it actually went out of business...).
What were we???
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