REMINISCENT, part 2

More favorite memories involving my favorite readers:

6. How embarassing--and I ain't LION!
Football season sure does make people exicted. It will make people dye or even shave their hair, paint various body parts and do all sorts of other otherwise idiotic acts purely in the name of team loyalty and school spirit. My favorite memory involving such enthusiasm occurred at the first pep rally of my freshman year of high school. All of the students had entered the gymnasium, the band was playing and the cheerleaders were hopping about. All of a sudden, from the corner of the gym comes our very first mascot! The school had purchased a lion suit and someone was dancing - albeit poorly - around in the suit to show it off. Then the big moment for the reveal came. Who was the secret soul that christened our mascot uniform? The lion slowly removed its enormous, oversized and disproportionate head from its body. The key word: slowly. It was like a slow motion scene in a movie, but that made it all the more hilarious, because as the lion removed its head, all +400 students and faculty packed into the gymnasium were made privy to two important pieces of information. First, our affeminate (and rumored to have been gay in his early years) principal was our mascot for the day. Second, and more importantly, HE WAS BALD! This was entirely obvious to all the spectators because as the lion head came off of his body, so did his toupee! We could see it: the toupee was stuck partially to both his head and the suit, but as he was removing the mascot head, the toupee decided to stay attached inside the lion. Naturally, pandemoneum errupted inside the gymnasium. My mom happened to be there fiming the pep rally because my sister's dance team was performing so she got the whole thing on video. People were going nuts, whooping and hollering and pointing. I think one kid fell out of the bleachers. Needless to say, the students were not the principal's biggest fans, and took great delight in his misfortune. This was a man who was known to drive a convertible while wearing an ascot and a beret. He was both flaming AND unpopular. My cheerleading "Coach" was standing right beside the principal and she tried to help him, but it was too late because everyone had seen. Together, the principal and "Coach" fished the toupee out of the lion's head and slapped it on the principal's chrome dome. Utterly embarrassed, he lowered the lion head back onto his body and tiptoed - yes, tiptoed - out of the gymnasium. Needless to say, I don't think he attended the football game that night.

7. The Worst Pick Up Line Ever
Another weekend of junior year and my friends and I were left to our own devices. We were trying to get a group together to do something or meet at someone's house so we decided to wait for some people at this random gas station on 280. One of my best friends, whom I'll call Sexy (you'll see why by the end of this story) and I were with Little Bit, and to pass the time, we decided to go into the gas station. This particular gas station is notorious for selling beer to minors, but that is NOT why we were there. However, I'm sure that IS why the random sketchy thugs that kept following Sexy around were there. She would be on one side of the aisle, and Sketchy Thug 1 and 2 would be on the other side, peering over the Musketeers and Milky Ways to stare at her. She'd move; they'd follow. This cat and mouse chase continued all over the store, until one of them finally approached Sexy on his way out of the store. Luckily, I was close enough to hear him actually say what turned out to be the worst pick-up line I have ever heard, or else I would never believe this story. He walked up to her, looked her up and down, and said, almost nervously, "Damn, girl! You got some sexy eyebrows!" Sexy looked at me, he scurried out of the store, and we burst into laughter. Almost 10 years later, that story is still funny to me. Sexy eyes, sexy butt, I could see a Thug complimenting a lot of different things about my friend. But really, who compliments your eyebrows, besides other girls and gay men?

8. She-he?
This story takes place one summer of college when I was working as a freshman orientation leader at Auburn. There were 36 of us and we were all rowdy in our own way. Especially rambunctious was one fellow whom I'll call Junior, as in Will Ferrell, Jr. He had been entertaining us all summer long, but this happened to be the one time that summer when a) no other counselors were around and b) he wasn't TRYING to be funny or awkward. Anyway, on the last morning of the camps, the students had to clear out of the residence halls before we let them go register for classes. This mass exodus from the Quad took place at like 7:30 a.m., so none of us were fully alert and thinking cognitively. Since some of the girls brought like 5 bags for a 48 hour trip to Auburn, it was not uncommon for dads, brothers, boyfriends, even our sweet male counselors to be seen loaded down with 8 different Vera Bradley bags (of the same 4 patterns), and the girls to be strutting alongside them empty-handed. So Junior gets into the elevator one Friday morning. It stops at the girls' floor and handful of people - including a boy - get on. Junior assumed that all of the luggage he was carrying belonged to his empty-handed sister, who got onto the elevator with him and was now standing beside him. Wanting to overcome that awkward elevator silence, Junior looked at the luggage-free girl, nodded toward the boy and said "Got your brother to carry all of your stuff, huh?" No one said a word back. The girl and her brother didn't even crack a smile. It wasn't until the elevator had stopped on the first floor and everyone had exited hastily that someone finally told Junior that the boy was actually a girl. OOPS!