It was a dark and stormy night, the night before prom. Derek and I sat in our basement at the computer late into the night. Koji sat engrossed in his video game to the left of us. Derek and Dan had enjoyed "Tommy Boy" earlier. I was scheduled to be a participant in this movie-watching event, but I had to wait for Koji to arrive from his track meet, not wanting to leave him alone like a free electron in a silicon chip or Mr. Burton on a cold, blustery morning, wandering the lake in a lonely manner, looking for a fish to complete his lonely soul.
REM blasted in our mind, a little too loud for music to be when you are trying to discuss matters of importance. Still, we were proud of our flippant attitude in determining the most extravagant event as graduating seniors.
Given our dire circumstances, I said, "Don't worry about it. We'll just figure it out tomorrow morning." The topic of conversation was what we would do tomorrow morning. It was too late for sensible people to try and be sensible.
Derek had a hole in his pants, and he proceeded to rip off the bottom portion of his lower garment. Koji heard the ripping noise and looked at Derek with that expression only Koji could make (Koji was a foreign exchange student. He was a member of a punk rock band in Japan but was harmless in a way that very few Americans could possibly imagine. He also personified the bad-singing Japanese person to a tea and attempted everything from Led Zeplin to the Beatles (at a moment's notice). The look shows his complete inability to understand American members of the human race. My Mom looked like she disagreed with my conclusion of normality when she rolled her eyes in our general direction as she put away the groceries.
I've never known my mom to go shopping at 11 o'clock. She must have been bored to have wandered about the deserted grocery store to look for food to fill my lonely stomach.
Derek and I concluded that we needed to go to some park down by the River. Our plans involved:
- Looking at pictographs and running around and flailing our arms about, and just being downright silly.
- Doing some target practice with my Dad's Guns.
That night, I tossed and turned like a hairy-toothed madman, pulling and stretching a quilt trying to cover his cold feet. I was ill. I had a nice cold-sore developing, and my nose was runny. Derek called at 7:00 AM to inform me to get ready to make a purchasing arrangement for groceries and flowers. I rose from bed at 8:00, too tired to flail my arms about. Derek arrived at my abode at 8:30 and waited while I brushed my teeth. We then got groceries, flowers, and girls.
Megan and I drove around Derek's house until he got there. We fixed and consumed breakfast, which consisted of Swedish pancakes (a little heavy on the egg, but delicious), fruit with cream, and OJ (of the fruit variety.)
Katie, Derek's youngest sibling, ate with us. I wanted to hit her. Derek did. Just joking, she was fine, and as a result of her fineness, no violence ensued.
After breakfast, we walked around the Snake River, looked at pictographs, threw rocks off the bridge, and messed around. I didn't feel silly enough to flail my arms about. We stopped at a shooting range, shot beer bottles and clay pigeons, and listened to Pachel Bell. Some guy told us not to use my handgun, not to shoot beer bottles, and to pick up the garbage, all of which we were obliged to do, and all of which we did. We had a nice drive, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We then went our separate ways to prepare for the big event.
Derek picked me up at 6:00 in his Lexi, and we picked up Megan at about 6:10. She looked very virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy. We went to Lara's house, where the congregations and multiple hosts of people were gathered to look at us, say absolutely nothing intelligent, and take our pictures, all at the same time. We stepped inside the living room with more people than square feet and more cameras than the Grand Canyon on a Japanese holiday. We muddled through our trials and woe and got on our way.
We had our pictures taken three times. Once I got home after the night, I tried the smiles I used in front of a mirror, and they looked exactly like what they were: fake. Not that I wasn't having a good time, just that I had no reason to smile looking at some annoying woman telling me how to hold Megan's hand.
Having completed our mission, we proceeded onward and upward to The Gamekeeper! The salmon was interesting kind of enjoyable, but not succulent or ultimately satisfying. It's not something I totally chewed down on. Although I guess I did, kind of, chow down. Not because it was extraordinarily good, just cause I'm ordinarily a pig, and I forgot to eat differently than usual. I was worried about talking, so I ate pretty fast.
After dinner, we went to the dance. It was loud. I wanted to go do something fun. I knew they had a baby grand piano on the stage at the Civic Center, and I thought it would be cool to play piano or something. I wanted to do something memorable instead of just going in and trying to talk over the noise.
I wanted Megan to feel comfortable, but it was unsupervised, and I didn't think she wanted to go in. It was probably locked anyway, but for a while, I thought I was with Derek, so I thought we could find a way. Then I remembered I was with Megan, so after being immature and trying to do something fun, I succumbed to the dance, and we went in and sat down at a table. We wandered around a little, talking to some of our different friends. We danced about 5 slow dances. I wish we would have danced to Stairway to Heaven, but maybe Megan wouldn't have liked it.
Surprisingly, they played Offspring and some other non-traditional dance music. After prom, we went to Video City to get a movie, but it was closed being 12:01. We just got "The River Wild" from Lara's residence and watched the movie at Derek's. In conclusion, it was a fabulous, fun-filled night for everyone. Or at least, I hope.
Later, I learned that Megan was very upset that we did not get dessert. Derek got some flaming thing.
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| Me checking Megan out. Jesus watching. |
