July 29, 2001 (idea)

It all started Wednesday night. I was hanging out with my boyfriend, Schmoo, Nick, Seth, Jonathan, and a few others. Some of us decided to go out to eat at Applebee’s. By the time we got there, five remained with the group. Tim, Jon, Aaron, Seth, and kaytay. We were seated in a booth adjacent to that which contained several children, which upset the menfolk of the group (that is to say, all except myself). Being the loud and obscene boys that they are, the topic of conversation quickly jumped into forbidden territory. I just tried to cover my ears through the worst of it.

Once the masturbation discussions were ended, the waitress was able to approach from a safe distance and take our order. Seth ordered some sort of dark, evil, bubbly alcoholic drink. Its very presence was distracting. I got my usual glass of water, no surprise. Our food was slow to appear, but it was good once it arrived. I had chicken fingers and fries in a nice apple-shaped wire basket.

Everyone present was speaking of the Rammstein concert that was scheduled for the next night. Aaron had bought a ticket for me, and I happened to have the night off from work, so it was a deal. I would be accompanying the boys to the Rammstein concert at the Orbit Room on Thursday evening. Exciting.

The men came upon a liter of Captain Morgan, the very smell of which turns my stomach. While they enjoyed a night of drunken revelry, I did word searches in between dozens of catnaps. There is one basic equation that all people must remember:

Alcohol + kaytay = sickness

Being one of the factors in the formula, I was forced to realize the truth of the situation in a violent fashion. It did not come as much of a surprise, seeing as how my dad had the nickname Two beers in his fraternity days. That was all it took before he was puking with the best of them.

The next day, we rounded up all the kids going to the concert and were ready to take off at seven. The only person missing was Jon, who happened to be the one who was supposed to drive. Thankfully he remembered to show up. Nick drove separately in order to see his girlfriend before the show, so the car was not as crowded as it would have been. However, there were still five people in the little Mitsubishi, three of whom were over 6’5”. Seth was the shortest, but I was by far the lightest. This qualified me to ride bitch. You know I was thrilled.

It was about an hour drive to get to the east side of Grand Rapids. A massive something was passed around to the passengers on behalf of the driver, making several rounds before disappearing. I was the only one to refrain from participating. It seems to be the theme of my life these days. I’m only a delicate female, after all. Ugh.

We arrived around eight o’clock just as the first opening band took the stage. I cannot recall their name, but the tacky glowsticks taped to their bodies and lovely white face paint made me think of ICP trying to fit in at a rave. I was not too impressed with their choice of apparel, and their lack of musical talent insulted my ears. I decided to make a break for the lobby and pay two dollars for a can of pop.

The next band to appear was Godhead. I believe they were going for the spooky look, but they must have been concentrating so hard on their image that they forgot to play well. If that was even possible. I was indecisive at first, trying to give them a chance to improve, but it was all downhill after their opening number.

Soon enough they were finished. This is when we made our move and started pushing towards the front of the crowd. Unfortunately we ran into an old acquaintance of the group from high school. She was wearing a plaid skirt of about two inches in length, a pink halter top with Naughty scrawled across the bosom, and thigh high black patent leather heeled boots. But it wasn’t so much the outfit that scared me (it was actually pretty tame for her), but the words that came out of her mouth.

”You’re cute. They’re looking for more tall skinny girls to be strippers.”

I looked at her blankly.

”It’s good money. I could get you in, I’ve been working as a showgirl for a couple months.”

I simply nodded, said I would consider it, and continued to drink my expensive pepsi.

Thankfully Rammstein was about to go on stage. They put on an incredible show, as always, full of fire and sparks and staged accidents. They are definitely one of the more interesting bands to see live. I don’t speak a word of German, but the band is one of my favorites nonetheless.

After the first couple songs, I looked behind me to see how my friends were doing. I saw Jon standing in a clear space about six feet to a side, completely and utterly soaked. I asked him what was going on, who threw water on him? He said he just sweated a lot. I didn’t believe it at first, but Schmoo vouched for him, saying the man was a maniac when it came to rocking out to Rammstein. I was impressed and disgusted. He must have dropped five pounds after losing so much water.

The ride home was not so bad, despite the fact that the five of us were crammed inside a two door Pontiac with no interior lights to show the speedometer or other instrument panels.

I had to work the next morning at 9:30. I did so as best I could, trying to scrub off the huge Ms scribbled atop each of my hands. Black permanent market and pale skin don’t seem to take kindly to each other. Work went quickly, however, passing in a haze of Burger King and unscrewing shelves from the wall to move stuff around and make room for the Christmas merchandise that is starting to pour in already.

After work, I returned home, had some dinner, changed, watched tv for a few minutes. Then it was time to take off for Hope College to see Two Gentlemen of Verona. I was extremely pleased with how the play went. It was much along the same lines as the recent Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio – original Shakesperean dialog accompanied by more modern music. Except for Two Gents was set in 1959 instead of the present. It was very cute. My dad has been bugging me to see a play with him all summer, so we finally did. We had a nice time together. I don’t really spend a lot of time with my dad anymore.

As soon as we got home, the entire evening was smashed to pieces. My brother and my dad were locked in mortal combat involving nothing but swearing, arm-waving and threat-making. It was not a pretty sight. I heard most of the conversation from the bathroom where I was touching up my makeup. Adam was sick of being treated like a child, sick of my parents telling him to get a job and telling him to do his community service and telling him to pay his MIPT and telling him to pay his traffic tickets and telling him to pay his car insurance. Adam owes my parents close to three hundred dollars for various reasons, and he owes me another seventy I fronted him for prom night several months past. Adam is having a lot of problems for only being sixteen years old. He’ll be in juvenile hall by the end of the summer if he doesn’t do the community service he was sentenced to. I feel sorry for him more than I’m angry with him. His life is falling apart pretty early on and there’s nothing anyone but Adam can do to fix it.

I left the house when the arguing became too bad. Aaron met me on the corner of my street and 168th. We went over to his house and then took a long walk down to Waukazoo and back again. We saw several police cars drive by, and some dude in a black mitsubishi got pulled over for speeding. I was too busy worrying about Adam and my dad to give it much thought.

On Friday, the 28th, I went to the Ottawa County fair with my parents and boyfriend. It was the Pfizer company picnic. My dad has worked for the company (formerly Parke Davis) for going on twenty five years. I don’t think I’ve missed more than two of the picnics in my life. They’re tradition. I remember when I was really young and still able to participate in the kid games; I won the race every year. I was always the first girl to cross the finish line, and I won a fifty cent piece for my efforts. I was rich.

Aaron and I met a nice couple from Romania who were sitting at our table. They were entertaining. We spent most of lunch drawing on the plastic tablecloth with the official Pfizer bubble pens they had been giving away to kids (I’m not sure how Aaron and I managed to get them). The little boy sitting across from us saw Aaron and me drawing on the table and immediately told his dad that those people were drawing on the table, so why couldn’t he? The dad had no choice but to let the kid draw to his heart’s content. The tablecloths were just going to be thrown away anyway; there was no sense in trying to keep them clean. By the time Aaron and I were finished, two feet of formerly white plastic was covered in Japanese kanji and abstract line drawings.

I went on the Scrambler with Aaron, since it is the only ride that doesn’t make him nauseous within the first few seconds. We were discussing whether or not we should try to slap the carnival worker man every time we zoomed past him. It was so tempting. I went on Force 10 with my dad. It’s a ride that looks like a mini Ferris wheel, only it goes a million times faster and tips over a lot. I passed out from the G force. It was a little scary. When the ride stopped and they got me out of the seat I was okay, but I still feel like a wimp for not being able to enjoy myself.

I ate half of an elephant ear, some ice cream, and spent twenty bucks winning several stuffed animals. Aaron won a little black gorilla for me. I played the game where a guy has to guess your weight, and if he is more than three pounds off you win. He was twelve pounds off when he guessed for me, so I won by a fair margin. I am now the ower of a little monkey with his nose sewed on sideways. I shall love him forever.

This is node number one posted
from kaytay's new notebook computer.