| The Trip to Tex-ass |
| Bands of America (BOA) is an annual marching championship held in different parts of the country. The one in our region is held in Dallas, Texas. In my junior year our band was invited to this competition. If I'm not mistaken, we were originally going to attend it in St. Louis at an earlier time in the year. I think that one got cancelled, so we moved it to a later date in a more annoying state. Wonderful, Steamy, Heart, and I all decided to share a hotel room together. Upon recieving a packet of suggestions (well, technically they were called "rules") for the trip, I was surprised to discover I was a room captain. This was odd considering I have as much a chance of getting people to do what I say (especially the people I roomed with) as teachers have getting their students to pay attention on the last day of school. I soon learned that room captain was basically a fancy word for "snitch". Knowing this, I ignored my duties. Of course I was still given the title of Room Nazi by my friends. The bus ride to Dallas was uneventful until we stopped for lunch. After a quick meal at Taco Bell (the best in fake Mexican food) I--and many others--discovered a dollar store across the street. Dollar stores are wonderful things. You can buy all sorts of worthless crap there. I especially enjoy the food isle. So much junk food for less than a dollar. Many people were going crazy inside there. One guy came up to me and said, "Check it out... army men! Isn't that awesome!?!" (there is a very good reason were called band "nerds"). It wasn't long before Wonderful and I discovered a big bag of Kazoos. Naturally we got some. If you know anything about the behavior of bandies, you'll understand that if you dispense about 20 kazoos to random members, nothing but trouble will insue. So, one would have to be crazy to do such a thing. That, however, didn't stop us. Soon our entire bus was filled with that annoying buzzing sound. It was the kind of sound you might expect hearing while crossing the river Styx. We tried playing our band music on them (emphasis on tried) Fortunately for the other buses (we had a few charter buses), none of their passangers got kazoos, so they didn't have to suffer like the people on our bus. Five minutes later we were all forced to put them away before "disciplinary action" was taken ("disciplinary action" is merely a euphemistic term for "beat the crap out of you"). With the absense of our instruments of torture the rest of the trip went by with nothing to report. But it wasn't much longer before we arrived in Dallas, Texas. The first thing you'll notice upon arriving at America's second largest state in that it SUCKS. There was a time when Texas was not the most horrible state in the country. The title once belonged to Alabama, but after Alaska bacame a state, everything changed. Texas always prided itself in being the biggest state, but once a larger one came along things changed. Texas lost its status and felt inadequate next to Alaska. Texas felt the need to prove that while they weren't the biggest in terms of square miles they were the biggest in everything else. Thus, it began to overcompensate for its loss. Ten gallon hats, those large tacky belt buckles, guns that stand higher than me, SUVs, and "The Great State of" added to its title. Everything just became bigger. That's when Texas went from a state that sucks to a state that SUCKS!!! The state itself is not necessarily a bad one. It's mostly the rotten cesspools of cities that pollute the already inferior Texan soil. Even Hank Hill (From TV's King of the Hill), who is a proud Texan, will admit that places like Dallas and Houston are among the worst places in the world. And they are. They are horrid cities of hate and despair. If you go there, you'll feel as if the city is piercing your chest and eating your soul inside. But enough about that. After the six hour drive, we arrived at the Baymount Inn and Suites. The room was your average two queen size beds, one TV with either Showtime or HBO, one bathroom with sink outside, motel room. The first thing we did was flip through the Showtime guide to see if there was any good movies on. Of course there weren't. Anyone who has been to a motel will tell you that Showtime and HBO will have good movies on only when you're not around. It's part of their plot to get you to sign up for their services. Things were fairly boring until someone turned the fan on. Thus began a thirty minute experiment to see what happens when you chuck stuff at the fan blades. We started hurling small objects at the fan as they ricocheted back at us, narowly avoiding impaling our skulls. That we engaged in this activity for so long proves our easily-amusedocity. That evening we were all driven to a mall. Actually, I should say we were all driven insane while getting lost going to a mall. The drive to this particular mall is 20 minutes from our motel. It took one hour. Why? Dallas traffic and confusing Texan roads, that's why. I remember that there was a very large revolving resteraunt covered in Christmas lights downtown. The result was a large orb glowing in the sky. I watched and noticed that form the moment I first spotted this orb (10 minutes into our trip) till the time we arrived at the mall (50 minutes later) the orb was never out of my sight. Sometimes it was close, sometimes it was far away, but we seemed to be circling it. That's how I knes we were lost. All my roomates and I had time to do once we got there was eat at a place called the Cadillac Bar. It was a good place too. Once we were done eating, Heart decided to lay down some rules for our trip. Rule #1- No Homo-eroticism (You'd be surprised how often this comes up on a band trip) Rule #2- There is no rule #2, but if there were we would continue to abide by it as if it did exist...which it doesn't. Rule #3- No pissing off Strangers Rule #4- Keep jackassery to a minimum (the same goes for dumassity and fagotry_ Rule #79- No two consecutive words spoken by a person can start with the same letter (I'm not sure why he made this rule) If someone breaks rules 3 or 4 on you, you are then allowed to break rule 3 or 4 to get revenge. If someone exhibits rule #1 one you, you are not allowed to evoke #1 on them as this will only lead to a more severe violation of rule #1 on both parties. Under no circumstances is rule 79 to be broken. RULE #2 DOES NOT EXIST! Why exctly Heart created these rules is a mystery to me. I think he was just pissed off at us. Whatever the reason they soon became the guidelines for the rest of our trip. When we got home they were disbanded (possibly because they were becoming irritating). But before they were repealed, they were followed blindly for no other reason that we had nothing better to do. I've discovered that people who get very defensive about their sexuality can become the source of great fun. Calling someone like this gay can provide hours of entertainment and will lead the person to commit several desperate acts to prove they're not. I never saw the big deal. Whenever I was called gay I merely started flirting with the person who made the claim. This usually turns their poor atempt at an insult (btw I hate people who consider calling somone gay an insult). I'm not a homo, but I like to keep people wondering. Steamy was this way (he's mellowed out since). We managed to turn everything he said into a gay euphemism at his expense. He always got pissed, but it was in good fun. The first night in our hotel was, well...interesting. No sooner had Steamy fallen asleep when we heard the most God-awful sound we've ever heard before. My first thought was that some piece of machinery was screwing up. It was, of course, Steamy snoring. Fortunately for Wonderful he had already fallen asleep and, by some miracle, was not woken up by it. Heart and I did hear it though. We tried waking Steamy up. Poking him and saying "Hey stupid! Wake up!" didn't work, so we started throwing our shoes at him. That too did not work. Both of us knew that we would be up all night if we didn't find some quiet place to sleep. Our only options were in the hall or in the bathroom. Sleeping in the hall would potentially have gotten us in a lot of trouble, so we went into the bathroom. Heart was the first one in so he got the bathtub. I got to spend the night with my head next to a toilet (not a recommended activity). The next day we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for breakfast. While there Heart found a dry erase marker lying around and took it. I wasn't sure why until later. Once we left the cafe we boarded the bus to go to Six Flags. Heart pulled out the marker and wrote in big letters on the window of the bus "TEX-ASS SUCKS!". If this wasn't enough The Arkansas Razorbacks (our college football team) had recently beaten the Texas Longhorns. Someone wrote the score of the game on the window and everyone on the bus began making horns with their hands and pointin them downward to signify Texas' defeat. This did not go over well with the people driving outside. We got flipped of several times, and many people were yelling obcenities at us from their cars. I half expected there to be a large mob of angry Texans waiting for us inside of Six Flags, but fortunately we got off without anyone doing anything.. The rest of the trip passed with little to mention. We didn't make finals at the contest. We arrived home with fond, yet somewhat disturbing memories of our trip and the knowledge that...um...okay so we didn't gain any knowledge from it. But hopefully, dear reader, you gained some perspective on the inner workings of a Bandie's mind. |