Lunch Ladies, Fire Fighters and Rocky Raccoon
It is not every day that this many life lessons happen to a teenage girl, but on one cold night in the early winter of my sophomore year....the stars lined up and I found myself puking over a toilet in the bathroom of the Runaway Bar (now a sushi joint, or tax office or chiropractor or whatever). My 2 best friends close by, snickering and holding back my hair as I found out exactly how many beers it takes a 120 pound kid to lose every meal she has eaten in the past 10 days!
let's back track.
I had a fantastically respectable job working at a diner called Waid's as a waitress. I was pleasant and quick on the delivery for the most part, so I really didn't dislike the job because I didn't have to put up with too many complaints from the patrons. And when tips were shitty (as they mostly were),...well I was still living at home so it was never too big a deal. The only thing that actually bugged me about the job was the hours. Well, my hours in particular.
Being of school age, I was limited to shifts in the evening (lame) and weekend shifts. This would be great except that the place opened even before the sun came up which made for very few Friday or Saturday night plans.
Well somehow I ended up with a Saturday morning off for the first time in about 2 months. This was amazing...and of coarse required the maximum amount of awesome being crammed into Friday night as was possible. Since I was running solo at the time, it also meant that I would be dragging my 2 best friends into my shenanigans along with me (they never really fought it). After some careful consideration, and while pumping gas at the(infamous)45 Hwy Circle K, lightning struck. So, I ran inside grabbed a pack of Reds, "borrowed" a lighter and paid my 10 bucks for gas, then headed home both excited and a bit nervous while formulating my plan. It was going to take some very deft mouthwork on my part to convince the parents...as well as the friends.
So here was the plan. We (my best friends and I) were going to sneak into the Runaway Bar, and.................sing karaoke.
Ok, I get how that could sound lame, but I really really wanted to. And there were only 3 real obstacles standing in my way.
1. I was 16 so I needed an ID.
2. My parents needed to be convinced that I was going somewhere that didn't require me being 21.
3. My friends needed to be convinced that they also wanted to go to some grimy-ass hole-in-the-wall to sing karaoke.
So I started from number 3 and worked my way back. Using my amazing people skills I convinced my 2 very classy, very polished best friends that they needed to get comfortable singing in front of others...you know, like in a stage setting. We were, after all, in choir...And of coarse we all wanted to do our best in all of our performances, eh, eh.
Now one of them was an easy sell. She was super adventurous in her own right...flying planes, working at Victoria Secret (before the rest of us even knew what a thong was), hell, she even listened to hip hop....like the badass kind (with explicit lyrics). Well she was off work for the night and was in.
My other bestie was a bit tougher to get on the horse, so to speak. She gave us (as there were now 2 thinking this would work) every reason why it was a terrible idea. She rattled off danger points, and horrible outcomes, and all other loads of caution oriented speak....but after a while she gave up, as she too secretly wanted to get up a sing her own rendition of Spice Girls Wannabe (and she did).
Then I had to figure out what I was going to tell my parents, as this was going to be a late night and we needed an excuse to be traipsing around past curfew. Strangely, we decided to just ask them if we could go sing karaoke and left out the whole "at a bar" part. To this day I have no clue why they said yes....but they did. Check number 2.
Number 1 was the hardest part. Back then we had these paper licenses with a very thin plastic cover. A bit of baby oil, Cover Girl pressed powder and a black pen you could almost fake your license ( at least that is what I had heard). So we went to work rubbing the area with the date of birth down with the oil until it sort of soaked through and made it blochy. Then pressed it out with powder and updated our birthdays with more favorable years. Hello 22!
so many ringer tees^^^^^
this was my actual license...note the wrong middle initial
The funniest part about the whole ID fix up was that I was the only one who clearly needed a fake. I don't know what was going on in the water at my girl friends' homes, but they both looked like weird model centerfolds, with designer duds and tall graceful strides, long flowing locks and heels (and boobs). No seriously, everywhere we went folks assumed they were in their 20's (and hot...like super hot)....I on the other hand was to dumb to realize that rocking my homemade Anarchy ringer tee with my oh-so beautiful second hand cowboy boots with birds painted on them (that I wore in my 7th grade play) was not doing me any favors. One of them threw a sweater on me and the other one pinned up my hair and suddenly I was presentable. (that night actually started a 2 year trend for me wearing thrift store sweaters)
Honestly, it didn't look half bad.
I could smell victory!
At around 8:30 that night 2 of us loaded up into my maroon Mazda 626 and my pilot adventurer friend took her own car since she had to be home to work her second job at the retirement center in the morning. My excitement was hard to contain, but I was sure we were going to pull it off.
All of our handy work on our licenses was completely ignored as we just walked right on in. What? No ID check? No flashlight spot check at all? No asking me to recite my birthday? Fine, I'll take it. I didn't need that much adventure anyways. So we found ourselves at a table that only had a little wiggling, and took about 7 coasters to make it level. Sweet! A bar with table stability issues! This was going to be great!
Then the waitress came.
"What can I get you ladies?"
blank stares
"Do you need a minute?"
blank stares
"I'll be right back."....and she walked away looking casually over her shoulder at us as if to say...."you ladies better be 21 and better order soon or I will get my manager....who will make you scrub dishes and take out all the nasty trash before he calls ALL of the cops on you for trying to break the law"......
At least in my head that is what it seemed like her glance was saying.
We sat there trying to figure out what we should order, (I was leaning towards a coke) when 3 Heinekens were set down on the table in front to us. Cue complete confusion on my part, but both my friends just turned and searched the room until a table of about 5 men nodded at us....all wearing matching white shirts with fire department logos on them...all of them. Matching. So I am more confused and positively sure they are there to bust us for being in the bar....tempting us with under age drinking.
(disclaimer) Now...I was not a drinker in high school. It wasn't that I didn't want to ....but the opportunity never really presented itself. I wasn't that cool, so I was never invited to the parties out at the Grass Pad. My parents didn't really drink. So, besides sneaking the occasional shot (2 ever) of vodka from my mom's liquor cabinet (that bottle is probably still there) and the one time my basketball buddy who lived next door and I tried the peach schnapps that his mom had above the stove and sat outside staring at the stars trying our hand at being deep in 8th grade....well that was what I had tucked under my belt.
No one touched the beers. We stared at them and like they were fanged vipers...fanged poisonous multi-colored vipers with glowing eyes. Eventually one of Parkville's finest walked up to our table and asked if we didn't prefer shots...At which point I was totally sure he was going to ask us for our IDs...so I naturally chugged the entire beer, held down the burp and the sudden need to puke and said "beer is great!"
Then to seem extra casual I lit a cigarette.
I guess that worked because he then introduced himself to my very hot friends, ignoring me all together and made small talk and made them giggle...What was I? Chopped liver?..no questions for me? No flirting and asking if I was here for the karaoke? I got us here, damn it! So... I picked up the next beer and shot that one as well, with equal grace and discomfort.
This was about the time the DJ started asking for names and song selections, so I moseyed on over to the table and grabbed a book.
This is where is got really really weird.
Sitting at the table next to the DJ set up was an entire gaggle of the lunch ladies from our high school...Like at least 4 or 5. They spotted me and waved me over. Coy as can be one of them asked me how I had managed to get myself in and was that another beer in my hand?
Shit, I must have grabbed it when I stood up. The final beer....I set it on their table untouched and said..."nope...It's yours."
Then I smiled...and slowly walked backwards, away from the table of lunch slingers and prayed to every god I knew that they would let it drop. No such luck.
When I got back to my table there were 2 more beers sitting in front of my friends, untouched. This was getting bad. I placed the book, a few sheets of tiny square paper and a couple golf pencils down and started signing us up for songs...I didn't realize there were numbers so I just wrote the songs down with the artist and turned them in. Then sat back down, still ignored, to rummage through the book to find the perfect song.
Eventually people started singing and I felt safe...no lunch ladies had called me out and no fire fighters were hovering at our table staring at my friends lady parts....The beers remained full and all was starting to feel right with the world and my plan was back in action...but I was starting to feel hot...weird. Must be the sweater. I pulled that off and sat unabashedly in my Anarchy t-shirt. As I stood up in between singers to turn in my selection another round of 3 beer showed up at the table...so did one of the lunch ladies. She smiled and pulled up the final chair at our table, so I sat back down again.
At that moment my first friend was called up to sing her version of Wannabe...she was so chill and walked up to the stage like she was doing us all a favor...she did. It was awesome....While she was doing her thing the lunch lady picked up one of the beers and started to drink it. I didn't stop her. Then I was blackmailed. She said she wouldn't say a word if we started to filter the beers in their general direction. Fine. Great. Drink the beers. Just don't nark on us!
So the night continued with beers showing up at our table and then finding their way to the lunch ladies, who by then had transferred to the table right beside us. They were drinking all kinds of concoctions and had started bumming cigarettes off me. Ok, whatever. Then my pilot friend gets called up to sing. I had signed her up for all kinds of songs...but not "That's the Way Love Goes" by Janet Jackson....not that song.
too sexy.....
Suddenly things were not going as I had planned....How did she know how to dance that way...sweet Lord the lyrics were ridiculous...what was going on...
So I chug another beer...this time with deliberateness and then grab another and start sipping away at that one as well. This is so bad. I have never been so green with envy...the lunch ladies, my other friend, the waitresses...we were all totally and completely jealous of this creature I was sure had possessed my best friend. As she walks away from the mic at the end of the song a silence fills the bar...every eye is on her. She sits and acts like nothing happened then picks up a beer and takes a big swig. Effing priceless. She owned us all.
As the night deepened the mood of the place became unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Suddenly the lunch ladies were my best friends and my best friends were way more awesome then before. I was still pretty much being ignored by the fire fighters, but that was fine. This is when I realized I had forgotten to turn in my song slip!
I run up and hand the DJ my paper and he says to stay right where I am because I am next...what? I wasn't ready... and suddenly I am terrified. So I light a cigarette and take another drink of a beer that has become a permanent fixture in my hand.
Ok. Ready.
And I put the empty bottle down and walk onto the make shift stage.
As the opening chords of Rocky Raccoon come on, I am suddenly feeling a bit sick to my stomach. But I ignore it and give the opening line my all...."Somewhere in the black mountain hill of Dakota there lived a young boy named a-Rocky Raccoon..."
rocky raccoon
All of the sudden fear melted away and I couldn't help but sing, and giggle...and hoe down???? and twirl...and smoke some more...and finger point while acting out a gunfight????
Then it ended and I did what any great musician does at the end of their awesomeness and I yelled into the mic "Thank you Kansas City!"....and puked. Cue applause!
So we are back to the toilet in the ladies room at the Runaway Bar...
And just like real friends would, my gals folded me over them and carried me out to my car. One drove me home while one tailed us from behind, lied to my parents and told them I had come down with the flu (my parents never said a word), and stayed up with me through the night rehydrating me with water.
The next morning I was called into work.
On Monday the lunch ladies ignored me as usual and a profound sense of unity rippled under the surface of my teenage soul. I had been a part of a magical night...so I grabbed my can of lemonade, gave one of my beer buddies my 50 cents and sat down to be a kid again.
let's back track.
I had a fantastically respectable job working at a diner called Waid's as a waitress. I was pleasant and quick on the delivery for the most part, so I really didn't dislike the job because I didn't have to put up with too many complaints from the patrons. And when tips were shitty (as they mostly were),...well I was still living at home so it was never too big a deal. The only thing that actually bugged me about the job was the hours. Well, my hours in particular.
Being of school age, I was limited to shifts in the evening (lame) and weekend shifts. This would be great except that the place opened even before the sun came up which made for very few Friday or Saturday night plans.
Well somehow I ended up with a Saturday morning off for the first time in about 2 months. This was amazing...and of coarse required the maximum amount of awesome being crammed into Friday night as was possible. Since I was running solo at the time, it also meant that I would be dragging my 2 best friends into my shenanigans along with me (they never really fought it). After some careful consideration, and while pumping gas at the(infamous)45 Hwy Circle K, lightning struck. So, I ran inside grabbed a pack of Reds, "borrowed" a lighter and paid my 10 bucks for gas, then headed home both excited and a bit nervous while formulating my plan. It was going to take some very deft mouthwork on my part to convince the parents...as well as the friends.
So here was the plan. We (my best friends and I) were going to sneak into the Runaway Bar, and.................sing karaoke.
Ok, I get how that could sound lame, but I really really wanted to. And there were only 3 real obstacles standing in my way.
1. I was 16 so I needed an ID.
2. My parents needed to be convinced that I was going somewhere that didn't require me being 21.
3. My friends needed to be convinced that they also wanted to go to some grimy-ass hole-in-the-wall to sing karaoke.
So I started from number 3 and worked my way back. Using my amazing people skills I convinced my 2 very classy, very polished best friends that they needed to get comfortable singing in front of others...you know, like in a stage setting. We were, after all, in choir...And of coarse we all wanted to do our best in all of our performances, eh, eh.
Now one of them was an easy sell. She was super adventurous in her own right...flying planes, working at Victoria Secret (before the rest of us even knew what a thong was), hell, she even listened to hip hop....like the badass kind (with explicit lyrics). Well she was off work for the night and was in.
My other bestie was a bit tougher to get on the horse, so to speak. She gave us (as there were now 2 thinking this would work) every reason why it was a terrible idea. She rattled off danger points, and horrible outcomes, and all other loads of caution oriented speak....but after a while she gave up, as she too secretly wanted to get up a sing her own rendition of Spice Girls Wannabe (and she did).
Then I had to figure out what I was going to tell my parents, as this was going to be a late night and we needed an excuse to be traipsing around past curfew. Strangely, we decided to just ask them if we could go sing karaoke and left out the whole "at a bar" part. To this day I have no clue why they said yes....but they did. Check number 2.
Number 1 was the hardest part. Back then we had these paper licenses with a very thin plastic cover. A bit of baby oil, Cover Girl pressed powder and a black pen you could almost fake your license ( at least that is what I had heard). So we went to work rubbing the area with the date of birth down with the oil until it sort of soaked through and made it blochy. Then pressed it out with powder and updated our birthdays with more favorable years. Hello 22!
this was my actual license...note the wrong middle initial
The funniest part about the whole ID fix up was that I was the only one who clearly needed a fake. I don't know what was going on in the water at my girl friends' homes, but they both looked like weird model centerfolds, with designer duds and tall graceful strides, long flowing locks and heels (and boobs). No seriously, everywhere we went folks assumed they were in their 20's (and hot...like super hot)....I on the other hand was to dumb to realize that rocking my homemade Anarchy ringer tee with my oh-so beautiful second hand cowboy boots with birds painted on them (that I wore in my 7th grade play) was not doing me any favors. One of them threw a sweater on me and the other one pinned up my hair and suddenly I was presentable. (that night actually started a 2 year trend for me wearing thrift store sweaters)
Honestly, it didn't look half bad.
I could smell victory!
At around 8:30 that night 2 of us loaded up into my maroon Mazda 626 and my pilot adventurer friend took her own car since she had to be home to work her second job at the retirement center in the morning. My excitement was hard to contain, but I was sure we were going to pull it off.
All of our handy work on our licenses was completely ignored as we just walked right on in. What? No ID check? No flashlight spot check at all? No asking me to recite my birthday? Fine, I'll take it. I didn't need that much adventure anyways. So we found ourselves at a table that only had a little wiggling, and took about 7 coasters to make it level. Sweet! A bar with table stability issues! This was going to be great!
Then the waitress came.
"What can I get you ladies?"
blank stares
"Do you need a minute?"
blank stares
"I'll be right back."....and she walked away looking casually over her shoulder at us as if to say...."you ladies better be 21 and better order soon or I will get my manager....who will make you scrub dishes and take out all the nasty trash before he calls ALL of the cops on you for trying to break the law"......
At least in my head that is what it seemed like her glance was saying.
We sat there trying to figure out what we should order, (I was leaning towards a coke) when 3 Heinekens were set down on the table in front to us. Cue complete confusion on my part, but both my friends just turned and searched the room until a table of about 5 men nodded at us....all wearing matching white shirts with fire department logos on them...all of them. Matching. So I am more confused and positively sure they are there to bust us for being in the bar....tempting us with under age drinking.
(disclaimer) Now...I was not a drinker in high school. It wasn't that I didn't want to ....but the opportunity never really presented itself. I wasn't that cool, so I was never invited to the parties out at the Grass Pad. My parents didn't really drink. So, besides sneaking the occasional shot (2 ever) of vodka from my mom's liquor cabinet (that bottle is probably still there) and the one time my basketball buddy who lived next door and I tried the peach schnapps that his mom had above the stove and sat outside staring at the stars trying our hand at being deep in 8th grade....well that was what I had tucked under my belt.
No one touched the beers. We stared at them and like they were fanged vipers...fanged poisonous multi-colored vipers with glowing eyes. Eventually one of Parkville's finest walked up to our table and asked if we didn't prefer shots...At which point I was totally sure he was going to ask us for our IDs...so I naturally chugged the entire beer, held down the burp and the sudden need to puke and said "beer is great!"
Then to seem extra casual I lit a cigarette.
I guess that worked because he then introduced himself to my very hot friends, ignoring me all together and made small talk and made them giggle...What was I? Chopped liver?..no questions for me? No flirting and asking if I was here for the karaoke? I got us here, damn it! So... I picked up the next beer and shot that one as well, with equal grace and discomfort.
This was about the time the DJ started asking for names and song selections, so I moseyed on over to the table and grabbed a book.
This is where is got really really weird.
Sitting at the table next to the DJ set up was an entire gaggle of the lunch ladies from our high school...Like at least 4 or 5. They spotted me and waved me over. Coy as can be one of them asked me how I had managed to get myself in and was that another beer in my hand?
Shit, I must have grabbed it when I stood up. The final beer....I set it on their table untouched and said..."nope...It's yours."
Then I smiled...and slowly walked backwards, away from the table of lunch slingers and prayed to every god I knew that they would let it drop. No such luck.
When I got back to my table there were 2 more beers sitting in front of my friends, untouched. This was getting bad. I placed the book, a few sheets of tiny square paper and a couple golf pencils down and started signing us up for songs...I didn't realize there were numbers so I just wrote the songs down with the artist and turned them in. Then sat back down, still ignored, to rummage through the book to find the perfect song.
Eventually people started singing and I felt safe...no lunch ladies had called me out and no fire fighters were hovering at our table staring at my friends lady parts....The beers remained full and all was starting to feel right with the world and my plan was back in action...but I was starting to feel hot...weird. Must be the sweater. I pulled that off and sat unabashedly in my Anarchy t-shirt. As I stood up in between singers to turn in my selection another round of 3 beer showed up at the table...so did one of the lunch ladies. She smiled and pulled up the final chair at our table, so I sat back down again.
At that moment my first friend was called up to sing her version of Wannabe...she was so chill and walked up to the stage like she was doing us all a favor...she did. It was awesome....While she was doing her thing the lunch lady picked up one of the beers and started to drink it. I didn't stop her. Then I was blackmailed. She said she wouldn't say a word if we started to filter the beers in their general direction. Fine. Great. Drink the beers. Just don't nark on us!
So the night continued with beers showing up at our table and then finding their way to the lunch ladies, who by then had transferred to the table right beside us. They were drinking all kinds of concoctions and had started bumming cigarettes off me. Ok, whatever. Then my pilot friend gets called up to sing. I had signed her up for all kinds of songs...but not "That's the Way Love Goes" by Janet Jackson....not that song.
too sexy.....
So I chug another beer...this time with deliberateness and then grab another and start sipping away at that one as well. This is so bad. I have never been so green with envy...the lunch ladies, my other friend, the waitresses...we were all totally and completely jealous of this creature I was sure had possessed my best friend. As she walks away from the mic at the end of the song a silence fills the bar...every eye is on her. She sits and acts like nothing happened then picks up a beer and takes a big swig. Effing priceless. She owned us all.
As the night deepened the mood of the place became unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Suddenly the lunch ladies were my best friends and my best friends were way more awesome then before. I was still pretty much being ignored by the fire fighters, but that was fine. This is when I realized I had forgotten to turn in my song slip!
I run up and hand the DJ my paper and he says to stay right where I am because I am next...what? I wasn't ready... and suddenly I am terrified. So I light a cigarette and take another drink of a beer that has become a permanent fixture in my hand.
Ok. Ready.
And I put the empty bottle down and walk onto the make shift stage.
As the opening chords of Rocky Raccoon come on, I am suddenly feeling a bit sick to my stomach. But I ignore it and give the opening line my all...."Somewhere in the black mountain hill of Dakota there lived a young boy named a-Rocky Raccoon..."
rocky raccoon
Then it ended and I did what any great musician does at the end of their awesomeness and I yelled into the mic "Thank you Kansas City!"....and puked. Cue applause!
So we are back to the toilet in the ladies room at the Runaway Bar...
And just like real friends would, my gals folded me over them and carried me out to my car. One drove me home while one tailed us from behind, lied to my parents and told them I had come down with the flu (my parents never said a word), and stayed up with me through the night rehydrating me with water.
The next morning I was called into work.
On Monday the lunch ladies ignored me as usual and a profound sense of unity rippled under the surface of my teenage soul. I had been a part of a magical night...so I grabbed my can of lemonade, gave one of my beer buddies my 50 cents and sat down to be a kid again.
