No Stupid Deed Goes Unpunished

My wonderful gay boyfriend, Jason, a teacher, posted a truly technicolor set of stories about kids in his class puking through the years. Coincidentally, I was with my dear high school friends over the weekend and we were reliving one of my own favorite puke stories:

We were seniors in high school and my friend, Chris' parents were away for the weekend. As you know, this means a party. So we all headed over and commenced with the drinking. Mary was the first to fall. One minute, she was mid-conversation with Chris' sister, Donna. The next, she's face down in the kitchen sink, losing everything she's consumed in the last (month) day. God love Donna. Without missing a beat, she casually walks over to the sink, turns on the water and the disposal, and continues with her story.

Unfortunately, Mary has not gotten sleep-over permission and it's too late to call her parents. We brilliant, drunk adolescents decide to bring her home. I can't remember what we thought about nearly-unconscious Mary getting past her parents. I would assume they were asleep.

As luck would have it, our friend Sue's boyfriend, Chris, had worked that night and had arrived shortly before Mary's puke-fest. He became our designated driver. I was slightly more sober than the rest, so I was the Wing Man. We trundle Mary into the car with Chris driving, Mary in the passenger seat and me, sitting on the bench seat between them. Mary's getting the spins so we decide to recline her seat, forcing me to scootch a little closer to Chris.

It was at a red light on Winter Hill after midnight that we look over to see Sue's mother (aka, Chris' future mother-in-law) pull up to the light next to us. We wave. She stares. The pieces...click...into...place. Uh oh. The light changes and we take off.

The next day, Sue's mom comes into her room, closes the door, and tells her she has something to discuss with her.


*** Please heed this warning: Never, ever, ever, ever do a Google Image search for "puking". Ever. ***

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Heinz/Hellmans/French's:
I'm sick of your upside-down bottles. They're awkwardly sized and you really waste a lot when you get to the bottom (err, top?). I'm a big girl; I can handle flipping it over and shaking it a little. What ever happened to anticipation anyway?

Dear ESPN:
Your announcers suck. It's not just that they are biased against the Red Sox but they don't even announce the game. Rather, they wander off on semi-relevant tangents and come back from commercial in the middle of play. I recognize this last complaint is not the announcers' fault but I just wanted to demonstrate my own tangent-ability.

Dear Mom at Stop and Shop:
Thanks so much for bringing your tweens shopping with you. Next time, might I suggest they skip the Heelys and you keep them in the same vicinity as you? Bet you'd be the first person to sue if the children were to wipe out in the frozen foods aisle.

Dear Heelys:
Your website is as obnoxious as your product. Good luck with that.

Dear Museum of Science:
Even if charging one adult and two children $54.00 for a few hours at the museum does not preclude you from being able to call yourself "not-for-profit", charging $24.00 for a plate of mac n cheese, chicken fingers, and a salad does. PS, those Bakugans in the gift shop you're charging $19.99 for? Sell for $7.99 at Target.

Dear XM:
If you're going to have an entire station dedicated to The First Wave/early 80s, go the extra mile and assume that your listeners would like to hear the extended version of of Bullet the Blue Sky.

You are forgiven for this oversight because you played Save a Prayer right after The Cure.

Dear Me:
Awesome decision to go with the sunroof and XM. Driving down the highway just past dusk on a not-too-hot August night, listening to Duran Duran with the volume turned up is one of life's great pleasures.

Shameless Wednesday

In my defense, it was 1986.

Now I double dog dare you; post yours.

Don't You Forget About Me

When I was a senior in high school, one of the kids in our class organized a spring break trip to Bermuda. I don't know what my parents were thinking but they agreed I could go. I distinctly remember the cost being $510.00 for a full week at the Elbow Beach Hotel. I got my first part-time job as a bank teller to pay for the trip. My boyfriend of two years was already in college but he and most of my best friends' boyfriends also arranged to come with us.

Come April, we boarded a charter flight and headed to what is still one of the best vacations of my life. We ended up in a little two-room suite cabana overlooking the beautiful beach below. Unbeknownst to any of our parents, our room ended up with me, my boyfriend, Stephen, my best friend, Chris, her boyfriend, Pat, my friend Sue, and her boyfriend, Chris. We also had Joe, Chuck, Shelly, Jen, Sean, and half our senior class coming and going as they pleased. Some more than others.

It was an amazing vacation in a fabulous place. We rented mopeds and explored the island. I remember swimming out to dance on a reef to the music of The Bermuda Strollers reggae band as they played on our beach. I remember the tropical fish swimming along the reef that could put Nemo and his friends to shame.

Some nights, we would sit in the piano bar singing along to standards with Sid, the elderly British piano player. And we would drink rum swizzles and mai tais. We would travel between groups of friends, exploring, talking, laughing, and drinking. With this our first shot at legal drinking (18 in Bermuda), you can bet we over-indulged but for the most part, we never got too crazy or did anything too dangerous.

Except for one classmate, Frank, whom everyone had completely lost track of. There were occasional Frank sightings assuring us that he was, in fact, not dead. During one evening's wandering, there was one such siting - as Frank was being thrown out of some girls' room. He could be heard asking "How can I love you if you won't lie down?" And then he was gone. Like Bigfoot.

Fast forward hours or days and Stephen and I find ourselves sound asleep on the pull-out couch in the middle of the night. I awake from a strange dream in which Stephen was sleeping on both sides of me. As I step out of the ether, I realize that there are indeed two people in bed with me. It was Frank! (Near as we can figure, none of us locked the door and Frank, in an attempt to locate home base, had stumbled into our room, found a cozy bed, and snuggled in.) I smack Stephen awake and tell him Frank is in bed with us! Mostly asleep, he opens one eye, says "oh, it's just Frank" and attempts to go back to sleep. Um. No. He's gotta go.

He rouses and agrees to remove our 'guest' from our bed. Frank is not a small guy and he's dead weight so Stephen enlists a sleeping Patrick from the next room. Eventually, they move him out to our patio and throw him across a lounge chair, where he happily spent the remainder of night. We think.

We returned home from Bermuda with only one serious injury (Jen, broken arm - moped accident), nobody pregnant, and our parents none the wiser.

Any Excuse to Celebrate

Do you know what today is??

Now do you know what today is??

Maybe we should start with lurking: In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely if ever posts or participates. God love The Wikipedia.

So in the true spirit of the "holiday," I'm going to tell you something about me and I invite you to delurk and tell me something about you.

My first "boyfriend" was named Kevin. He lived two doors down from me. I was about 10 years old and he was 11. He brought me lilacs that he cut from another neighbor's lilac bush. He also allowed me to ride his Huffy "Phantom 56" bike when no other girl was allowed to ride it.

Fast forward two summers. Kevin was also the first boy I ever kissed. He was 13/almost 14 and I was 12/almost 13. We were playing Truth or Dare and I chose dare. Suddenly, we're kissing. He smelled like Chaps cologne and tasted like Velamints. I knew right there and then that I liked kissing.

Do you remember your first boyfriend? Who was it?

Do you remember your first kiss? How was it?

Mind If I Axe You a Question?

As part of my Christmas present, Andy bought me a really nice pair of Dolce and Gabana sunglasses. So nice in fact, that I initially though the glasses case they came in was actually a really cute clutch purse.

Now I haven't paid more than $16.00 for a pair of Target sunglasses in nearly seven years. I do like the ones he got me but am unsure whether they really work for my current sweater-and-jeans lifestyle. So I need some help deciding.

Here's me, sunglasses-less (yes, my hair is huge, I'm learning to live with it):Here's me in my current, Target sunglasses (please ignore "necky-ness" - trust me when I tell you this was the best of the bunch.):

Here's me in my super-cool D&Gs:

Well, what do you think?

80s Alert

(Pipe Wrench Fight)