Why I'm Going to Hell

The New Girl has been polling the blogosphere lately asking what we'd like to hear about. One recent post was Memories (no cheesy spelling here) in which she talks about those memories that are much more visceral than others; where you can really feel the emotions just as the events unfolded on the day they occurred. In one, TNG talks about not paying for the hot chocolate of a mentally challenged man who didn't have enough money to pay at a gourmet shop. It started me thinking about some of those not-so-proud moments from my past. Here's one.

We're in our late teens/early twenties returning from a midnight show in my friend, Joe's car. There were six of us slammed into his '79 Dodge Aspen, with three of my good-sized guy friends in the backseat. We're stopped at a red light when Buffalo Stance comes on the radio (yes, it's playing in the background right now) so we turn. it. up. and commence with the over-the-top singing and dancing. The guys in back start noticing how the car bounces when they slam into each other and gyrations continue.

As the light changes from red to green, we notice the car next to us, with a couple inside giving us the finger as they take off. WTF? Being a bunch of pseudo-adolescents, we goad Joe into following them to find out what the deal is. Please keep in mind that we're hardly a bunch of thugs. I mean, we all met at Catholic school for God's sake! We're just being absurd and want to find out why they gave us the finger.

We move from a pretty main road in our town to a more residential neighborhood. They definitely know we're following them. They make the fatal mistake of turning onto a dead end street and with that, the guy slams their car into park and jumps out of the car, intent on protecting his girlfriend.

Our boys get out of the car as well only to learn that…the couple is deaf. When we were dancing in the car, they thought we were making fun of them using sign language and flipped us off! They were scared to death.

For what it was worth, everyone (and by everyone, I mean the guys because thank GOD, my girlfriend and I had never gotten out of the car, so I was able to just slide under the dashboard and watch everything unfold) apologized and explained what we thought had occurred, and that of course they weren't planning to beat this couple up (Really! I mean it! We weren't those type of kids! Please don't judge me!). In the end, the guys shook hands and all was 'well.'

I'm pretty sure I went to church the next day. Doesn't matter, my elevator is still going down.

Thanks, TNG for helping me to dredge up that painful memory. Now I'm going to have to go to church again.