~ October 23, 2003 - 8:04 p.m. ~
Flat Tire
Lately I've been feeling a lot like the popular kid in an eighties movie, or at least like that ugly girl who gets the makeover and becomes popular. I feel like that character; you know, just before her obligatory downfall into obscurity, right before the high school shit hits the fan. Since I realized what a shadow of myself I've become, I've adopted an attitude of brutal honesty and badassedness. I've cut my hair and broken out the Tank Girl soundtrack again. I'm ditching all my "safe" clothing and got a rockin' pair of knee-high boots. I'm delving into fishnet stockings and short skirts paired with baggy cowl-necked sweaters. Hell, if JennyBlues asked me to, I'd go braless again. Although I've grown a few cup sizes since those days, and I don't think I could get away with it. At any rate, I am tapping into both my inner Alley Sheedy and Molly Ringwald from The Breakfast Club and turning myself into the person I wanted to be when I grew up. I finished writing my first book today. Every morning, I walk about forty blocks to the Empire State Building and back, and when I get home I do about 120 crunches and lift weights. Since I've been doing this steadily (about two weeks), I've lost 8 pounds. I am working backwards to regain the independent person I was without losing the lessons I've learned along the way. I think I'm making progress.That said, today's anecdote is borrowed from Jennyblues. She did not change the names in her journal, though I'm going to continue to do so here to avoid toe-stepping. Other than that, the words italicized here are hers. Enjoy.
It's September of my junior year in high school, and Em and I have procured tickets to the Dave Matthews concert at the Coral Sky....on a school night! I think this is one of the last big things Em and I did together before I started dating you-know-who and gave up my social life. I'm a little hazy on the details, but Gina decided to come along, and so Em's dad drove us to the concert only to flip out over a) an asshole driver, and b) the fact that Gina didn't have a ticket. One would have thought that Mr. Em's Dad would have been familiar with the finer points of buying from ticket scalpers, but this was apparently not the case. Luckily, we stopped in the traditional traffic snarl known as "concert traffic on a two-lane road", and were able to pick a ticket for Gina up on the road side, a full two or three miles away from the amphitheatre.
The three of us made it through the lax pre-9/11 security and hiked up the hill, looking for a spot to drop our flannel shirts. At this point, Em ditched us to look for Girlfriend Flavor of the Month (a delectable red-headed, I believe), and I began my Soliloquy of the Month: Why Has Boy X Stopped Sending Me Love Letters? Understandably, Gina decided this was the perfect time to see whether it was possible for those underage to buy beer.
The concert itself is mostly a blur. Mostly, I remember Dave singing "Crash" and "Two Step," and everyone going nuts about it, and crying when he sang "Lover Lie Down." Em finally found GFotM, so we didn't see much of her, and Gina finally found beer, so all was well. Mr. Em's Dad picked us up (Gina wasn't allowed to drive that late), and we all crashed on Em's bunkbeds, as was traditional. Untraditionally, for a story involving Em and her bunkbeds, no one hooked up.
We awoke about 45 minutes before school started and began rushing through our morning routines when Gina received a phone call from her mom, who had received a phone call from Jenn2's mom, wanting to know why Gina hadn't picked her up for school.
Ruh-roh. The Scooby Gang was in trouble.
We through on our clothes, jumped into the jeep, and headed in the opposite direction of SOA to pick Jen up in Palm Beach Gardens. After picking her up, we decided that since we were already late, we might as well stop at the Dunkin' Donuts on Military and Northlake, which was notable for having a guy who usually hit on me and thus gave me free bagels. Sadly, he wasn't there.
So we're finally on our way to school, nearly an hour late, when Em decides that we need to come up with a good excuse, as was the par for Em. We decided on an easy one--flat tire--and since we were nobodies fools, we even decided on which tire it was--back left.
We arrived at school, fed our sob story to uber-secretary Mrs. Berryman, an accomplice of mine in the breaking of many, many school rules, and headed off to class with our "excused tardy" passes. Except....
Gina's car really did have a flat tire. Back left. Whoops. Fred, the rent-a-cop noticed this in the parking lot, and we received a lecture on driving on a flat tire instead of calling for help. The truth, at any rate, never came to light. We narrowly escaped justice once again.
What Jennyblues most unfortunately missed out on was the brilliant performance Em and I gave in front of Mr. Borenhorst, the assistance principal in charge of ass-kicking and detention. It was great. He calls me down out of my French class and asks my to verify which of my tires was busted. I tell him back left. He nods, very grim and then has Mrs. Berryman call Em in from her class. She arrives, he cautions me not to say anything, then asks her which tire. She verifies back left. He presses his fingertips together and says, "I see. Gina, Fred has just notified me that your back left tire is flat. I thought Mrs. Berryman told me you fixed it."
I start gaping and sweating. "Em, you fixed it right? What were you doing at that gas station?"
Em is sweating too, and she screws up her face, and I can tell she's thinking of something clever, when all of a sudden she just bursts out, "I'm so sorry! I just filled the thing up with air because I didn't want you to think I couldn't change a tire!"
"What!" I scream. "Em, how could you do that to us?!"
At which point Mr. Borenhorst gave Em the talking to of her life for letting pride jeopardize our safety, and then reamed me out for trusting Em instead of calling a professional. Satisfied that we were never going to do this again, he wrote me a note excusing me from my last class so I could get a new tire, and let us go. Once out of the administration building, Em and I almost died laughing, we were so relieved. It took me an extra three hours to get home from school because AAA never showed and I had to get a ride to a gas station and back and then convince a passing cop to help me change the thing, but at least we didn't get detention.
