Freshman Fright-Night

The "fright night" I am referring to is the freshman orientation night at the local high school. By the looks of it, it was the social event of the season for both generations, parents and their teens. This is a small town, the majority of the parents have lived here all their lives, thus subjecting their children to the same fate. I can't say it's all bad, I do like to check the mail in my p.j.'s so it's nice to be out in the boonies.

Anyway, we got there early because the new high school is in it's second full year of handling every teen in our county. There used to be a high school for every community. The one we had was built while Lincoln was in office and had seen little renovation since then. I guess it was the same in the other towns, so it was decided that they would build a high school the size of a supermax prison and bus every teen child in the county to it. This makes orientation or activity nights a form of torture I wouldn't inflict on my worst enemy, maybe my ex, but never an enemy!

We were directed to the parking lot where we parked and joined in a small gaggle of teen girls my daughter knew from last year. After the once over wardrobe assesments, the group began walking again. The level of the squeals they were emitting would have registered only in a dog's hearing. I couldn't ever remember screaming that high pitched sqeual as a teenager, but I'm sure I must have. That's how my mother became so skilled at ignoring me.

Once we made it inside, we were in a giant hallway the width of the highway that ran in front of the school. A short polyster clad woman with a staff badge and whistle around her neck was screaming a repeated line of instruction to each new group to come in. We were to find the line with the letter that corresponded to our last name. We were given folders that contained thirty pages of info all in different colors. The whistle lady was screaming again, this time we were to go to the gym if we'd gotten a folder. So everyone began moving in the same direction. I had a brief flashback to a festival seating Whitesnake concert I'd attended back in the 80's. I got squished up against people I would've crossed the road to avoid.

I then abandoned any worry of looking too freakish and embarrassing my daughter. I figured if the kid with the dad who had a sweat stained white tank top and looked like he'd just crawled out from under a bridge could walk with him, my daughter had nothing to worry about. I'm a people watcher by nature, so this was a literal optical motherlode. I followed my daughter's group into the gym and up several rows of shaky aluminum bleachers. I got a bird's eye view of everyone coming in. I sat there watching the crowd pour in while my butt went numb.

The women seemed to fall into two categories. The ones with no makeup, feathered hair, 80's throwback clothes and that general worn out look. The other group of women were the polar opposite, they had the teased, bleached or frosted sky high hair, the piled on orange glow of way too much Mary Kay and clothes with patterns that would give you a seizure if you looked too long. These were also the women that left the fog of perfume behind them, most could be smelled several hundred feet away and left a wake of cheap perfume everywhere they went.

The principal then came to the center of the gym, he spoke with a wireless microphone and went on and on about the horrors of cell phones. With every cornball joke he'd say, a woman two rows up behind me would let out a cackle worthy of the open mike nite at a comedy club. We were then turned lose with a map and a schedule of our childrens classes. We were told once the bell rang we would need to find the classes and spend ten minutes in each.

When the bell rang, some parents sprang to life like they'd just fired the opening shot at the New York marathon. People were scurrying everywhere. I told my daughter to hold on to the back of my shirt and I began to just plow thru the crowd, all the while shouting over my shoulder for directions. Each class was located approximately a mile away from each other. I felt like I'd gotten my cardio in for the evening after we'd jockeyed to all four classes. We'd go to each class room, the teacher would introduce themselves, welcome the kids, tell the horrors of cell phones, then stare at the clock and wait for the ten minutes to be up. I always secured a chair in the desks at the back, so my butt never really got much circulation until we were all turned out in the parking lot after two hours of scurrying thru the halls.

You could always spot a freshman, they were trailing behind their parents, clutching a map of the high school, looking scared shitless. I survived freshman orientation and successfully fought the urge to drink afterward. I just feel sorry for my daughter, she has to do that every day till next summer. No wonder I don't miss high school.

Midnight Barfer

I love cats, always have, I've grown up with them and when it came time to setup my own house, I felt like it wouldn't be a home without a cat. Well, here we are some twenty years later. I have a house full of cats. I mean double digits. I'm quickly being known as the cat lady. This doesn't bother me at all. In fact, the only thing that really bugs me about my cats. Every single one of them. Is their ability to vomit. And it' s never at a time when I see it happening and can toss them outside so they can barf in the yard, the way nature intended. It's usually always at night, specifically when I go to bed. I've gotten all my pillows arranged and I'm comfy. I'm dosing off and what do I hear? My oldest cat Lilly, under my bed, throwing up. She can't barf in the living room, or even in the kitchen on the linoleum. It's always under my bed. This is the hotspot for cat activity in my house. If they fight, at night, it's under my bed. They yowl or try to make sexy time, it's under my bed. So this forces me out of my comfy spot, trying to search for something long enough to just make a sweeping motion under the bed, all the while I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. This is such a common occurrence in my house that my children no longer respond to me screaming my head off in the middle of the nite in my room.

My other cat, Isabelle. Likes to throw up in my son's room. She'll go to his door, scratch to be let in, and once inside, proceeds to throw up in the middle of the room. Once she's finished, she leaves. All the while giving my son the regular cold, icy stare. I can see it on her face, she's got the attitude like "try and stop me and I'll poop somewhere you'll never be able to find it". I guess it's just all part of sharing your home with cats, they barf, and they shred things. They run around in the middle of the night knocking stuff over. Usually when one of the cats leaves a little present in the middle of the night that is not under my bed, my son is always the one that will step in it.

But even with all the barfing and destruction, I love them. My cats act like they don't give a damn if they ever see me again, and I just eat it up. I guess any other cat "owner" would say the same.