15

The other day my friend Baby Fish Mouth posted about her life as a fifteen-year-old. I told her I had her beat just with one simple word: band.

That's right people, I was in the marching band until my senior year of high school. When I was fifteen I was toting around a clarinet in my backpack, thank GOD it fit in there, so no one would know that I was in the BAND. I also had my first "real" boyfriend, he played saxophone and had a hoop earring HOT. My parents got a divorce and I suddenly found myself with a step-mom and a 3-yr-old step-sister. NOT hot, I only had one other friend with divorced parents. Side note, Oddly enough, that is still the case...how is that even possible with a divorce rate of ~50%?

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take a dance class called "precision" which was basically a segway into the high school drill team. Now, those girls, THOSE girls were cool. With their cute sequined outfits, big makeup, and Texas cowboy hats and boots (we were the Cowboys, what do you expect?), I could only dream of every being that cool.

The only problem was one thing, I CAN'T DANCE. It was incredibly difficult for me to even learn the routine, let alone perfect it. That and I was petrified of anyone seeing my less-than-curvy body in a leotard. How embarrassing! More embarrassing than being in marching band! TOOT TOOT.

I too wore overalls A LOT, had my braces taken off that Spring, had Calvin Klein jeans, as many Tommy Hilfinger shirts as my Mom would buy me, and knee high socks.

FLASHBACK: We had to go to band camp two weeks before school started. No, it was not an actual camp. We had two-a-days at the same time as the freaking football team on a black asphalt parking lot at the high school. I got sun poisoning for the first time in my life SUPER COOL and several people passed out from a combination of the heat and locking their knees.

I was in the junior honor band as a frosh, SWEET, the only kids better than I was at the clarinet that were freshmen were Korean, in case you didn't know, a LOT of Korean people live in Dallas and are really freaking talented. Some of the Korean kids actually had GRAY HAIR. I mean, that shit is for real.

In middle school I ran track and cross-country and I was GOOD. Like top 10 every single time out of 200 girls running good. However, my MOTHER insisted that I stay in band, she'll tell you that isn't true but it is, what Mom wants their daughter to stay in band instead of being a cool high school athlete, I don't know. And yes, I still resent that because when I ran track again my junior of high school all of my talent had been marched away, no pun intended, BWAH.

Oh yea, that Spring, I decided one day after school to walk to our local Kroger and get a job. Yup, I bagged groceries. Some lady with umpteen million kids and two giant carts of groceries made me push BOTH carts out to her giant Euro van and didn't even tip me. I barely tipped the scale over 90 lbs. and this biotch expects me to push my weight in groceries in the 100 degree Texas weather. Oh well, I don't feel bad because I accidentally cracked some of the eggs that were on the CRATE of eggs she was buying.

All in all, I don't miss a single aspect of High School. My high school years weren't bad but they certainly weren't a musical BONK BONK.

Dear Husband, if you are reading this you bad ass Division 1 athlete you, you Senior superlative All Around Best Athlete, top 3 shut outs in the state of Pennsylvania in soccer and full basketball scholarship you, THANK YOU FOR MARRYING ME.