The Story You Requested
It happened about seven years ago when I was 20. I was living in a typically sedate neighborhood in San Jose, California at the time. I don't remember the occasion, but I decided to throw a party. Of course, my parties were known for being "peculiar" because the strongest "drug" offered was caffeine. I have always had an aversion to drugs, alcohol, and even cigarettes. Surprisingly, quite a few people still showed up. However, most of them were hyperactive teenage boys. Actually, I wasn't really all that surprised, as I was a bit of a tomboy then, more so than Janet is now. Everything started fairly early in the day, and we were bored and out of things to do by 4:00 pm.
This just would not do.
Chris stole my old purple Converse shoe. He was bored, and he knew that would get a rise out of me. He was right.
That started everything. I jumped up to get my shoe back, but he was gone out the door and down the street before I could touch him. He came back ten minutes later sans shoe.
Thus, the hunt began. Their mission: find the shoe at ANY cost.
Of course, they made a mockery of it and that just angered me all the more. I wanted my shoe back! They claimed they weren't properly prepared for the mission. A sedate, tree-lined urban neighborhood is a dangerous place, y'know! I turned the mockery back on them, and broke out the face paint so that they could put on their war paint. It wasn't the type of face paint clowns use to paint balloons and stuff on kids' cheeks; it was more like the grease paint that the clowns themselves would where. Then I brought out the sidewalk chalk so they could mark their trail.
Then things got bizarre.
After an hour, the shoe had still not been found, or so some of us had been lead to believe. As it turned out, it had been found within the first twenty minutes, but they had divvied up into warring posses, and the first posse wanted to watch the other sweat it out a bit. I was really pissed, and they found my tantrum to be too amusing to let end. When the second finally learned the truth, the hunt morphed into a one sided, violent game of "capture the flag".
It was well after dark by then and the ignorant neighbors thought it was a gang fight. The cops were called. They came charging down the street with lights and sirens to break it up, and everyone suddenly got buddy buddy again, mocking the cops! They harassed each other, but then, serendipitously, the police received a more important call and left.
Everyone immediately filed back inside in search of duct tape. ?!?! I was afraid, very afraid. Still, I obliged them; I gave it to them, and they proceeded to conduct a "ritual" with the tape to appease the "gods". It "worked". The cops did not return. They then decided to depict the evening’s epic events in the middle of the street with the chalk. Many ballads were sung and many epic poems were recounted. The shoe was elevated to holy relic status, a Holy Grail, if you will. However, when it became necessary to include the shoe, it was found to be missing again!
The search began anew. This time there was even more fervor than before!
Everyone redid their war paint to mimic the warriors in Braveheart with the exception of Zeb who mimicked The Crow, donned trench coats, and set off. The shoe had still not been located by midnight. We were out of soda and munchies, so we made a run down to the local 7-11... in thick face paint... in black trench coats... with a role of duct tape sticking out of a pocket... at midnight!
There were a few customers in the store when we arrived. They took one look at us and panicked. One poor guy dropped his hotdog and split! The other two backed into a corner and started whimpering, begging us not to kill them. The clerk went deathly pale and fiddled with something under the counter that turned out to be the panic button. We were just as stunned for a moment, and then went about our business getting soda, candy, and chips. The police skidded into the parking lot, lights and sirens blazing, a minute or two later. They drew their guns, and asked us to release the hostages. !?!?! We stood back dumbly as the two in the corner ran screaming to "safety". The clerk disappeared into the stock room to hide. The police entered, and out of all the cops in San Jose, three were the same as had dealt with us earlier! Happily, they did not recognize us under our new face paint and trench coats. We played innocent, swore honestly that we had made no threatening gestures, and they searched us. We obviously had no weapons. Chris got impatient, and asked where the clerk had disappeared to, because he wanted to hurry up and pay for his stuff so that he could get back to the house to pee. He didn't want to admit it at the time, but the drawn guns had scared him pissless, almost literally! Since the cops really couldn't do anything more, they harassed us a bit, and went to find the clerk, whom confirmed everything we had said. So, we were released after paying for everything.
Chris all but sprinted for the bathroom once we were around the corner, which, of course, looked really bad, because we were followed by one of the cars. The cop (luckily not one that had been there earlier) stopped us at the house and demanded to know what was really going on! The boys obliged him utilizing the full color illustrations in the street, recounting the epic poems, and singing the ballads! I wanted to die. I just wanted to die. It worked, though. Not only did the officer understand, he seemed highly amused!
We were still looking for that darn shoe when he came back 45 minutes later. He assured us that he was on break and had come to see if he could "help". Jed wanted to paint his face, too, but he would not allow it. Officer Friendly did manage to find the shoe for us, however. It was in the bushes under the porch railing. My best guess is that it had been knocked off of the railing when no one was looking, but no one had thought to look in such an obvious spot. He then held the flashlight for us so that we could draw the last frames in the "story" in an area that wasn't lit by the street lamps. He still had some time left on his break afterward, so we moved further down the street to find some clean ground and he directed a few people to lie down so that he could sketch their outline, like murder victims at a crime scene. A cat just happened to be lying in the street. He sketched it, too.
The farce had finally been exhausted by the time he left. We filed back into the house, plopped onto the couch, and recounted the funniest parts of the night's exploits.
The chalk paintings survived for a mere 48 hours, but I don't think any of us will forget the fun we had living and writing that story to begin with.
And now you know just how much trouble a tennis shoe, a box of multicolored sidewalk chalk, face paint, duct tape, and a bunch of teenage boys with too much sugar and caffeine in their system can cause.
This just would not do.
Chris stole my old purple Converse shoe. He was bored, and he knew that would get a rise out of me. He was right.
That started everything. I jumped up to get my shoe back, but he was gone out the door and down the street before I could touch him. He came back ten minutes later sans shoe.
Thus, the hunt began. Their mission: find the shoe at ANY cost.
Of course, they made a mockery of it and that just angered me all the more. I wanted my shoe back! They claimed they weren't properly prepared for the mission. A sedate, tree-lined urban neighborhood is a dangerous place, y'know! I turned the mockery back on them, and broke out the face paint so that they could put on their war paint. It wasn't the type of face paint clowns use to paint balloons and stuff on kids' cheeks; it was more like the grease paint that the clowns themselves would where. Then I brought out the sidewalk chalk so they could mark their trail.
Then things got bizarre.
After an hour, the shoe had still not been found, or so some of us had been lead to believe. As it turned out, it had been found within the first twenty minutes, but they had divvied up into warring posses, and the first posse wanted to watch the other sweat it out a bit. I was really pissed, and they found my tantrum to be too amusing to let end. When the second finally learned the truth, the hunt morphed into a one sided, violent game of "capture the flag".
It was well after dark by then and the ignorant neighbors thought it was a gang fight. The cops were called. They came charging down the street with lights and sirens to break it up, and everyone suddenly got buddy buddy again, mocking the cops! They harassed each other, but then, serendipitously, the police received a more important call and left.
Everyone immediately filed back inside in search of duct tape. ?!?! I was afraid, very afraid. Still, I obliged them; I gave it to them, and they proceeded to conduct a "ritual" with the tape to appease the "gods". It "worked". The cops did not return. They then decided to depict the evening’s epic events in the middle of the street with the chalk. Many ballads were sung and many epic poems were recounted. The shoe was elevated to holy relic status, a Holy Grail, if you will. However, when it became necessary to include the shoe, it was found to be missing again!
The search began anew. This time there was even more fervor than before!
Everyone redid their war paint to mimic the warriors in Braveheart with the exception of Zeb who mimicked The Crow, donned trench coats, and set off. The shoe had still not been located by midnight. We were out of soda and munchies, so we made a run down to the local 7-11... in thick face paint... in black trench coats... with a role of duct tape sticking out of a pocket... at midnight!
There were a few customers in the store when we arrived. They took one look at us and panicked. One poor guy dropped his hotdog and split! The other two backed into a corner and started whimpering, begging us not to kill them. The clerk went deathly pale and fiddled with something under the counter that turned out to be the panic button. We were just as stunned for a moment, and then went about our business getting soda, candy, and chips. The police skidded into the parking lot, lights and sirens blazing, a minute or two later. They drew their guns, and asked us to release the hostages. !?!?! We stood back dumbly as the two in the corner ran screaming to "safety". The clerk disappeared into the stock room to hide. The police entered, and out of all the cops in San Jose, three were the same as had dealt with us earlier! Happily, they did not recognize us under our new face paint and trench coats. We played innocent, swore honestly that we had made no threatening gestures, and they searched us. We obviously had no weapons. Chris got impatient, and asked where the clerk had disappeared to, because he wanted to hurry up and pay for his stuff so that he could get back to the house to pee. He didn't want to admit it at the time, but the drawn guns had scared him pissless, almost literally! Since the cops really couldn't do anything more, they harassed us a bit, and went to find the clerk, whom confirmed everything we had said. So, we were released after paying for everything.
Chris all but sprinted for the bathroom once we were around the corner, which, of course, looked really bad, because we were followed by one of the cars. The cop (luckily not one that had been there earlier) stopped us at the house and demanded to know what was really going on! The boys obliged him utilizing the full color illustrations in the street, recounting the epic poems, and singing the ballads! I wanted to die. I just wanted to die. It worked, though. Not only did the officer understand, he seemed highly amused!
We were still looking for that darn shoe when he came back 45 minutes later. He assured us that he was on break and had come to see if he could "help". Jed wanted to paint his face, too, but he would not allow it. Officer Friendly did manage to find the shoe for us, however. It was in the bushes under the porch railing. My best guess is that it had been knocked off of the railing when no one was looking, but no one had thought to look in such an obvious spot. He then held the flashlight for us so that we could draw the last frames in the "story" in an area that wasn't lit by the street lamps. He still had some time left on his break afterward, so we moved further down the street to find some clean ground and he directed a few people to lie down so that he could sketch their outline, like murder victims at a crime scene. A cat just happened to be lying in the street. He sketched it, too.
The farce had finally been exhausted by the time he left. We filed back into the house, plopped onto the couch, and recounted the funniest parts of the night's exploits.
The chalk paintings survived for a mere 48 hours, but I don't think any of us will forget the fun we had living and writing that story to begin with.
And now you know just how much trouble a tennis shoe, a box of multicolored sidewalk chalk, face paint, duct tape, and a bunch of teenage boys with too much sugar and caffeine in their system can cause.