mirrored shades - the eye reflects, vol 2

high school tomfoolery

part 1 - cutlery

as noted in the last installment of "hindsight", well no, rather it was noted in the comment by bear (though i planned to write of it anyway). anyway, back in the day, when patronizing a local restaurant, we (being cold bones, bear, myself, and a couple other friends) took up the habit of stealing spoons. why? i dont know. we would steal the spoon, and then name it after a famous guitar player. in later times, we would also steal forks and name them after famous bass guitar players, and then steal butter knives and name them after famous drummers. why? i told you, i dont know. i recall specifically having spoons named jimi hendrix, jerry cantrell (alice in chains), billy corgan and james iha (smashing pumpkins), stevie ray vaughn, i believe eddie van halen, and the one i recall most was dimebag darrell (pantera) (r.i.p.).

why do i remember his most? (i do have an answer for that one.) i remember deciding that a spoon was needed that would be named dimebag darrell, and knowing that we couldnt steal that spoon from just anywhere. i mean, what justification would there be in bestowing the name of such an amazing heavy metal guitar shredder on a spoon that was used to eat cottage cheese? or ice cream? or to stir the cream and sugar into some weak-ass dennys coffee? no, no indeed.

we stole the spoon that would later be known as dimebag darrell out of a bowl of tasty, spicy salsa from the local dive burrito joint.

part 2 - gentlemen, lets give her a hand

this same group of friends used to spend an exorbitant amount of time in the late evenings at the local dennys. maybe youve gathered this already, if you happen to have read all of my entries here. maybe not. well, let it be known, we spent entirely too much time there. and many of you may have a pretty good idea of what the late-night crowd at dennys tends to be like. the rest of you - use your imagination.

im not entirely sure who started this one up, but whoever it was, they have a level of ingenuity i could only dream of. i cannot take credit for it.

whenever a girl/young woman (group of girls/young women) of a particularly... lets see... nasty skanky ho-ish heavily painted ridden hard and put away wet unsavory variety would walk into the room, one of us (usually the first to spot her/them) would begin softly, slowly... clapping. eventually one or two others, or in a serious situation, all of us, would also clap - until she sat down or was out of sight.

why? well, ill tell you why. the implication of the "clapping" was that she had the "clap". see?

of course, luckily, none of them ever really knew that we were clapping at them, and thankfully (and obviously) none of them would have known why. otherwise we of that group would probably all look very different due to the face-rearranging their generally large boyfriends would have provided us, free of charge.

part 3 - barnyard metaphors and an aria of imitated voices

some of this same group also sat with me at lunch (high school. remember? time to learn "reading for comprehension). a couple of the individuals in this group used to like to watch (from across the cafeteria) a group of attractive females. yes, we were on the loser side of society, as none of us bothered to go over there or anything. i see that now. anyway, these girls had another friend who would join them usually at the end of the lunch period. this friend was... large... not necessarily fat large, but rather she-could-have-beaten-the-crap-out-of-any-of-us large. one of my friends that would stare longingly at the group of girls began noting, when the large girl would arrive, "the rooster is in the henhouse... i repeat, the rooster is in the henhouse."

apparently one of the girls that they used to stare at for untold minutes each day had one of those obscenely high voices, and also apparently tended to speak at a rather rapid pace. the same friend of mine would imitate her speaking in his falsetto: "meedlymeemeemeelymeemeemeedlymee"

then cold bones would begin imitating the... "rooster", if you will... in a very very low, and slow, voice: "braaawwraowrowrowbraaawowbrowrooowraow."

then they would both do these voices at the same time. one high and fast, the other low and slow.

it was weird. probably about as deranged as it sounds.

part 4 - twist ties and...

i dont even remember where we would get twist ties (like the ones that come on bags of bread) in the cafeteria at school. but we did. somebody probably brought them with their cheap pre-ziplock baggies for their sandwich. i dont know.

one of the guys (we will call him "bob"... because of the way his head moved while he walked, and we made fun of him for it) used to make... you know what, im gonna to have to be vague here... this guy used to make a rather offensive... super hero i suppose... (ill thank those of you who know to not post details in the comments section) out of twist ties, and would also make an equally non-pc arch nemesis from twist ties. it was terrible, looking back. yet i laughed. im an ass.

but i do remember cold bones making one of them, one time... and then tore off half of the paper on one of the legs, and half the paper on one of the arms, leaving bare wire exposed. he showed it to "bob" and said "look, its 'leprosy bob'."

of course, bob misheard him, and said "hell no, i dont want to be 'leopard skin bob'!" he was known as "leopard skin bob" for some time after that.

part 5 - ...straw wrappers

during those late nights at dennys, cold bones made a serious habit (read: just about every time we were there) of taking the wrapper from his straw, rolling about three-quarters of it into a ball with the other one-quarter hanging off like a tail, then would twist this remaining one-quarter into a tight string-like tail, making it look very... sperm-like. he would usually do this under the table or something so that nobody else noticed (what would freud say?).

he would then would take said straw-wrapper-sperm, throw it into somebodys drink, and shout "protein shake!"