| While covering the following subject in my last account, one more memory has sauntered out of the recesses of my gray matter. There used to be a teen dance hangout in our area called The Note, where on a Saturday night from 8 PM to Midnight for 85 cents you could walk around and smoke IN FRONT OF EVERYONE and act cool. We rarely if ever danced with any girls (or guys!) because in the first place, it wasn't cool and in the second place we would have been afraid of burning some poor girl's nose with our cigarette which WOULD NOT have been cool. You had to be at least 16 to be admitted and the only reason for the minimum of 16 was, no doubt a major conspiracy to keep US out of it. With both Tim and myself being able to drive (more on that in future accounts) and at last being able to get into The Note, we anticipated our 16th birthday at least 4 years ahead of time, which in the "kid time" frame of reference was equal to 6 months as the equivilent to 1 day of actual time. When that GLORIOUS DAY FINALLY came (23,122,592 days later in "kid time"), our elation on our 16th birthday was indeed without earthly measure! Ah, at last, standing in line at the Gate of Nirvana and that first walk into The Note the VERY NEXT Saturday night! One of the many mischeivous things Tim, Kit and I did at The Note was to take a prophylactic (even at age 16 we STILL NEVER used them for their intended purpose!)... As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I can't recall us EVER using ANYTHING for its intended purpose. Anyway... we would sneak into the guy's restroom as soon as it was deserted and slip the prophylactic over the wash basin faucet and turn on the water to a slow steady flow and then "innocently" stride out. We would then go to a dimly lit corner and watch the other guy's expressions as they exited the restroom. I'm sure their dates were wondering "what was so funny?" Hummm, come to think of it, maybe that imagined major conspiracy to keep us out wasn't so far-fetched after all! :-) (After a few incidents of doing this, we went on to many other wacky practical joke things at The Note. We were forced to eventually cut back on our "condom capers" because by this time, the "Black Market" prophylactic prices skyrocketed (due to the high "inflation" rate). |
