It's been an interesting past few days. Friday was the greatest football game of all time. I know this, and I don't even understand football. We were down six points with a minute and a half left. In a minute and a half, we got a touchdown. Then we got another touchdown. Then we got that extra point thing. (I told you I don't understand football.) Everyone was going nuts. Besides this, we had an awesome performance. You could tell that everyone was completely giddy by the way we trooped back to the band room. We switched places, spun around, made lines which wove in and out - everything silly that we've ever done. Mr. Thomas didn't seem to care - I think he was pretty giddy too. He'd been kind of a jerk earlier this week, but this weekend he was as complimentary as he usually is. He always takes credit for the football team winning, by the way. I find this amusing.
Then we had a competition Saturday, followed by a competition Sunday. They were as competitions always are - We played for seven minutes and then hung around for many many hours. It was a pretty rockin' time both times. Saturday after I mentioned that I am the twenty questions master, we played twenty questions for way too long with people like the boogeyman, Melvin Calvin and Jay's hypothetical girlfriend. (Eric and Schultz came up with this one.)
"Is she fictional?"
snigger "Definately."
"mythical?"
"...I would say so."
"An inside joke?"
"Ha. Yes."
"Associated with sex?"
snigger "Hopefully not."
We did a mediocre job Saturday and got a good score - silver medal and better than most of the bands there. Sunday we did a much better job but got mediocre scores. Most people were pretty livid, especially Alice.
"Two stars in general effect? People were fucking singing along!"
"You know what? It's because we're doing Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell does not make a good band show," said Jason.
"You'd think that," said Eric, "except that the Fiddler on the Roof show got silver."
"Jesus, what does it take to make these judges like you?" said Alice.
"Um... Sexual favors?" said Molly.
"I think so! That must be what Springfield's doing, because they are not a five star band."
On the busride home we played ten fingers. (You go around in a circle and each person says something they've never done. The people who have done it put down one finger, and the person with fingers left at the end wins.)
"Oh man, ten fingers!" said Eric. "The game where the losers win!"
"Somebody start," said Rob. "Aidan, start."
"Okay. Um... I've never smoked pot." Everyone looked around. Rob put a finger down.
"Eric, come on. You lie," he said.
"Nope. Swear to God." He held up his ten fingers.
Next Kaitlyn the shallow colorguard captain went. She looked at Valerie and said, "I've never had a crush on Steve Smith." There was a collective "oooh," and Valerie turned bright red. She yelled at Kaitlyn, laughing nervously, put her head against my shoulder trying to hide, and then retreated to the back of the bus. Everyone, of course, already knew that Valerie is absolutely obsessed with Smitty. Valerie is the kind of person whose crushes are deep and immature, and who is not good at being subtle. We moved on. I had ten fingers still up for a surprisingly long time. Really the only things I got out on were "I've never been overweight" and Rob's Hindu girlfriend's "I've never eaten chicken." Then it got down to me, Eric, and Molly. This is when it got interesting.
I looked at Molly and smiled a little. "It's funny, because you could go really low right now."
"I know. But you could too, so I'm not going to."
"What? What could she go low on?" said Dave.
"Nothing, just... each of us knows something equally embarassing about the other, so nothing will happen."
"I've never dated Adam Larsen," Eric blurted out. There was laughter. I put a finger down and said, "It's funny because if more people were playing, it probably wouldn't be just me."
"I've never been dumped," said Molly. One down for me.
"I've never had a dream about marching band," said Eric.
"You lie!"
"No, it's true." Molly and I put fingers down.
There was a pause. "I've never been kissed," said Molly. People looked at her.
"You're a junior in highschool!" said Alicia.
"I've never broken my JOL," I said, mostly to shift focus.
"What a loser!" said Eric. "I broke mine the first day I had my liscence."
Dave whispered something in Molly's ear. "I've never been part of a band couple," she said. More laughter. Eric, who had two fingers left, put his index finger down so that only the middle finger was up. Alice, with whom he is quite open about his hatred of band couples, was sitting right behind him.
"I've never had hot coffee," I said. Eric was out. I had one finger left. Molly and I looked at each other. "...See, now I feel like I have to go low," I said.
"Do it, do it! Go low!" said Dave.
"If you do it, I'll do it."
"Can I be nonspecific?"
"No! I will be specific!" There was a pause. We held up our fingers and stared at each other. "Unless you want me to say it," she said. I smiled. My heart was beating pretty fast. Pretty much everyone was listening. I made my descision.
"I've never had a crush on an assistant drum major," I said. There was a "ooooh," among the people who were watching. They all seemed to be staring at Molly, grinning, waiting for her reaction.
She was bright red, smiling, eyes narrowed. She waited for the "ooooh" to die down. "I've never had a crush on JULIAN!" The "OOHHHH" was definately louder this time. It came from no one more than it came from Dave and Eric. People laughed. People said, "what did she say?" I covered my face and sank down in my seat, laughing and feeling kind of hot and out of breath.
After the "OOHHHH" died down, Eric said, "Oh my God, let's talk about them now." He, Dave and Alice said "whisper whisper whisper," occasionally throwing in a "Molly," "Aidan," or extra loud "Julian."
"I love how Aidan left it a little open, but Molly just came right out and said it," said Eric.
"Yeah, that was great. Wait, which assistant?" said Dave, leaning closer to me. I told him. He seemed generally uninterested.
"Wait," said Rob from a few seats ahead of me, "Tall, skinny, sax kid Julian?"
"No, the other Julian," I said.
"Me too!" he said.
"Shut up," I said.
"Yeah, I think we can agree that this doesn't leave this bus," said Eric, in an uncharacteristic act of consideration.
"Yeah," I said, covering my face again. "This is more embarassing than a normal crush. Like, I am unreasonably embarassed."
"Aidan, don't worry. We've all had crushes that we weren't exactly proud of," said Alice.
Back at the band room, I ran into Valerie, who was still quite red and more or less freaking out. I looked at her. "It's not a big deal," I said.
"Yes it is!"
"Look, I'm going down to sign up for my jazz band audition. You can come." We walked down the dark hallway to the main part of the Williams center. "You do realize that you're one of three people who are unreasonably embarassed right now, right?"
"Did everyone know?" she said.
"Well... Yeah."
"Did everyone know about my crush on Jay sophomore year?"
"Yeah."
"What about the one in between?"
"RJ? Didn't you go to prom with him?"
"Yeah, okay, that one's kind of obvious."
There was a pause as I wrote my name on the sign up sheet. "Do you think he heard? Is that what's bothering you?"
"Well... I don't know. He heard his name."
"Yeah, but he wasn't in the game, and he didn't really seem interested in the game. He was doing something else. Besides, he probably has some idea anyway."
"Yeah, probably... Molly doesn't like the same one as me, does she?"
"No, it's a different one."
"Oh, okay."
I got home and tried to stay up and do my homework. It didn't really work. I thought a lot about how this is going to pan out. I doubt very much that it won't leave the bus. I mean, Rob knows. And Alicia knows. And now Dave and Eric know. I'm pretty sure I avoided eye contact with Dave for the rest of the ride after it happened. I think I didn't want to know whether or not he was disappointed.
Our next competition (well - noncompetitive competition) is Mr. Thomas' birthday, so we're going to play "Happy Birthday" on the field before the show. Alice and Jason are organizing it. It's going to be awesome. I wonder how the people running it will feel though.
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