soapboxdiner

The fondest recollection

I. am. ti-red.

Poor Good Neighbor. I feel so bad for her. She just can't ever catch a break - and if there is a woman deserving of a break, it is the Good Neighbor. I am so angry at her mother and her meth-head step father I could pull their respective ears off their respective heads.

You know, 30 minutes is only one-half hour. 30 minutes a night should not be described as the ruin of their marriage. Especially not when the extra 30 minutes of babysitting is due to a single mother earning a living for her two children. Should. Not.

Ever.

So I've agreed to watch the children from 6 to 6:30 in the evenings. And really, I don't mind watching the girls. What I DO mind is being expected to be here on the dot, when they can't be bothered to notify ME when they're out until 7. I have a life, too. If you aren't going to be there and needing my babysitting services call a person, people. That way I don't stress and break my neck getting home in time to see your empty driveway.

Yeesh. Little consideration, people. That's all I'm asking.

(Like I have room to talk.)

.

.

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So I watching I Love the 80s on VH1 this past Sunday, and I totally remembered, I LOVED THE 80S!!! I don't care who knows it, I think the 80s were the rockingest decade ever! Where's the beef, Rubix cubes, Atari, the Breakfast Clubbing Brat Packers... they all are little snapshots of my tender years. Filled with ahhhhh and wonder.

Lisa "Lost in Emotion" Lisa, you got me through 6th grade.

Rick James, when you wrote "Party All the Time" for Eddy Murphy, you opened me to a whole other world of free spiritedness I didn't know existed for women. And Eddy, I have to tell you, hearing you hold that "My girl likes to party all the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeee, yea aaaa aaaahhhhhhhhhhh", brought a tear to my eye. It brought back such sweet memories of being 12. Particularly, my awakening to the night life.

So there I was, 12 years old. I had told my mother I was spending the night at my best friend's house, Alma Ramirez. Ah, Alma, you who taught me break dancing and skipping school - you were so ahead of your time.

It was soooo late at night (it had to have been at least 9 pm!), when you got off the phone and told me that we had to go meet some of your friends on the South End. We snuck out of your house on Broadwater and walked, and walked, and walked some more through the red light district and all the way across the railroad tracks (The Tracks, for Billings-onians). Our destination? South Park.

Finally, we arrived. One mere block from my uncle's house. There we waited for your friend. Then you saw him! He was with a girl. They were at the other end of the park, coming towards us. God, it was a dark and cold autumn night. As they got closer, I saw it was no other than my cousins - Boy and A! I didn't know you knew my cousins!

As we met up, we were instructed that we were to meet "the guy" in the gazebo. There I learned for the first time that Alma and Boy indulged in the Jane. Who knew?!? I certainly did not indulge, and lo, the disapproval I felt, shaded only slightly by childishness at being so unhip as to not indulge, myself. No matter. The exchange happened and "the guy" left. You all lit up, and I tried ever so hard to pretend I was hip not coughing out the smoke of my first cigarette. God, thank you for the dark night to hide my green-at-the-gillsedness which left me almost as high as the rest of our troupe.

But then - afear! Who is that brutish, baseball bat lugging thug riding his bicycle?!? He had to be at least 14! He was huge! Run! Hide! Quick! And so we ran... to hide in the Hamburgler toy. Up the ladder to the hollow sphere guts of the park toy, all four of us hid for an eternity as the monstrously large thug searched for us, banging his bat menacingly on the merry-go-round and teeter-totter, the beastly tyrant of fear, him.

At last he tired of his unrewarded prowl and off he road into the damp, foggy eve. Tightened muscled complained as we one after another descended out of the belly of the Hamburgler. Just as the last of us (that would be me) escaped from the Jonah's whale belly, we saw the bully again! Run! Runnnnnnn!

Just ahead of the freakish brute, we arrived at our final destination - Alma's aunt's house just kitty-corner from the park. Phew! Safe at last!

Inside, there was Pepsi and Jiffy Pop, and Eddy Murphy on MTV, crooning that Mariahesque (before Mariah was Mariah) over-stretched note. All the cousins, her's and mine, as well as the two of us too, tried to hold that note... and I am happy to report, I made it all the way through without taking one single breath.

And so, through it all, it turned out that I was hip after all.

Thank you, Eddy. You inspired greatness that night. Greatness, I tell you.

7:31 pm - 10.15.03
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