Thursday, June 25, 2009

Floating the Boat

I have never been the "popular girl". Nor have I ever really wanted to be. I always kind of fit in wherever, making friends as I went along. I was in the band so a lot o my friends were also in the band...and yes I guess that would make me what most would call a "band geek"...should you want to put a label on it. And I guess I should go ahead and say too that the handful of friends I did have in high school were mostly boys. No...I'm not and never have been a slut. I just get along better with guys. Always have. They don't hold grudges and they are far less dramatic than most girls I know. (Though I can think of a few exceptions....).

One of my best friends in high school was a guy who at one time I would have considered dating. Ok, let's be honest, we did go out on one date and I thought it was great and awesome and oh he's so wonderful and oh my God he kissed me!!!.....but he never called me again that summer and totally lead me on...the little rat. So needless to say. We tried. It didn't work out and we would have killed each other anyway now that I think about it. We were always destined to be friends and I think we are both happy to say that we have kept that friendship going since we were in 6th grade. From here on out, we will call him Jon.

So Jon and I would randomly hang out at least once every other week or so. He would show up at my house (un-invited) sometimes when I wasn't even there. I would walk in and there he would be, sitting on my couch, talking to my Dad. But I loved it. It's just how we were. Completely random. We never really had a plan. We would just go with the flow....and it didn't always include being involved in something that was....let's just say it...legal.

For instance. One night Jon called me up to see what I was doing, which was nothing, and asked me if I wanted to hang out. He was meeting two of our other mutual friends (another John and Shaun...confused yet?:) ....Yes, both boys), and they wanted to know if I was up to tagging along. Of course I said "sure! Why not?"

I got ready and met them in the food lion parking lot right down the road. This is where we parked. Then we started walking.... I started thinking to myself. They seem to know where they are going and have yet to inform me of this small, apparently unimportant detail....perhaps I should ask. But wait. We're headed towards the high school...no wait why are we turning? This is a...oh jeez.....this is a cometary!

"Um." I said in my small voice.

No one heard me and in fact, they began to pick up their pace. Mutual friend John grabbed my hand and drug me along.

Weird....

I began looking all around me as I continued to follow these 3 idiots through the creepy graveyard. What was that? Oh my God? We're going to die or get killed and we're already surrounded by dead people!!! These were just a few of the thoughts running through my mind. One other thought that kept breaking through went something like this.....


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Ok. Now that that's out of the way. I was noticing that it was starting to get dark. So here we were. At a cemetery. Walking/running to who knows where...oh yeah. They do! And they aren't telling me ANYTHING! And Mutual friend John is still holding my hand (what's up with that?) but I'm too afraid to let go....Then we stopped.

"We're here." Jon said.

"Where?" my meek little voice exclaimed. Then I saw them. Coffins. Empty coffins. I began to ask, "What are we...." when I heard it. Water. Running water. I turned my head and alas. There it was. The french broad river. I didn't have time to think before I realized that I was helping Jon push one of the empty coffins towards the river. Jon and Shaun were already in theirs ready to take off.

You might ask yourself at this point, why did you go with them Mary if you were so scared and had no idea you were going to be doing this in the first place and isn't that illegal and blah blah blah. Well, I will now answer your these very reasonable questions with the same answer I gave myself when asking them to myself.....

There is no way in hell that I am running BY MYSELF back through this creepy graveyard, in the dark, with no flash light, having no idea where the road is because I'm lost, listening to all of the creepy dead people moan around me, envisioning scenes from Michael Jackson's thriller while zombies plan to attack me....at any rate. Prison has to be better than any of those thoughts. I'm sticking with the boys on this one....

And somehow through all of this "logical" thinking. I looked around and found that everything was moving quickly around me. I looked in front of me and there was Jon grinning. I looked down and there I was. Sitting. In a coffin. Floating. Down the french broad river.

At this moment in time, Jon thought it would be so super funny to start rocking the coffin back and forth and send me into hysterics. But then I started to laugh. It was actually kinda fun. And who was going to catch us anyway? I mean, who else knows about this place and it's dark and nobody's out this time of night and wait....are those lights up ahead? What's that noise?

Jon and the other two in the "boat" floating beside us seemed to notice about the same time I did. It seemed that there was construction going on at the building across from the river and the lights we were seeing were those shining on the building and illuminating from the construction worker's helmets. This would not have been a big deal if it hadn't of been the exact spot where we were planning to "dock" the boat per say. There was no way we were going to be able to do this without anyone seeing us...which meant we needed to get out now because we were picking up speed with the current and fastly approaching our only other option.

So Jon frantically started "steering" the coffin towards the side of the river so we could jump out. In all honesty, I'm not sure how he made this happen but we still didn't make it fast enough. Under the bridge we went and we were closely approaching the bright lights. We did however make it to "shore" and managed to drag one of the coffins out of the water...the other one didn't make it and continued to float down the river.

We stayed low to the ground to prevent anyone from seeing the 4 kids that mysteriously came out of the french broad. Once we got our bearings we realized that we were right across the street from the parking lot that held our nice, safe cars. Please understand, when I say, "right across the street", I really mean across 4 lanes of oncoming traffic. So we did the only thing we could do.....we ran! we ran hard and fast and we didn't look back.

The only thought in my head during this moment was next time I hang out with these guys, I am NOT wearing flip-flops.....

But we made it. We made it safely back to our cars and I looked at my loving friend Jon and said these three little words.

I. Hate. You.

He looked at me and grinned. I snarled at him and ordered him to take me home. From that day on, I was sure to ask him before hanging out with him, "Where are we going?"

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