Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. After tonight, nobody at Westerberg's gonna let you play their reindeer games.

33/40

It is a source of constant low-grade amusement to me that I was surprised to find, upon signing up for a running forum (that is, a forum about running, not one you participate in while running), that the alias "Martha Dumptruck" was already taken. OF FUCKING COURSE it's already taken, daaaaamn -- you ain't the only person who was alive in the 90s, brah.

My preferred flavor at this time was still Red Sangria. I hadn't puked hard enough from it yet to be put off it. O those golden years.

32/40

So this is the next year, 1992, my senior year at Cowburg High School. This time, a group of us rented a room at the Sandbagger (not its real name), for years the unofficial official after-party venue just a few miles from the TacoJocko prom site. We used my friend D's mom's credit card, with her knowledge and permission; D was a junior, and her mom was kind of out of the loop on this sort of thing, so she was easier to cajole than, say, my own mom, whom NO ONE ever successfully managed to put ANYTHING over on (my mom is and was a fucking Ninja Master at ferreting out sneaky teenage ratfuckery).

ANyway. So we drove ourselves, like six to a car (as you did in those days), did all of our getting-ready at the Sandbagger, had a lovely prom, then went back to the motel for the mayhem. And my god, mayhem it was. There was pool furniture in the indoor pool, Funyuns ground into the carpet, Bud Light and Bartles & Jaymes bottles all over the fucking place, a mix of kids from our school still in promwear, changed into after-prom slutwear, already in pajamas, etc., and kids from all over the county who were invited to the after-party -- and not a person over 21 in the whole goddamn place. I can't imagine what the hotel booking office thought was going on -- our school did this every year. Nobody even called the police, that I'm aware of, which is the most amazing part of this whole stupid story. It was the funnest, except for I kept running into my ex-BF and his new GF and it made me sad so I just drank more (good plan!). Next morning was all about the Funyun cleanup, finding people's fancy prom undergarments (there were at least two lacy bras in the pool), fighting nausea and headaches, finding someplace besides your own room's trash cans to stash the empties, and trying to talk D down off the ledge of a freakout over her mom's Amex getting charged for the "damages" (Funyuns. Those fucking things are from the DEVIL.).

And but so here's me, antes de la fiesta. Woooooooooooo!

Look away, Mr. Gleemonex. Just ... look away. You don't wanna see this.

31/40

So yesterday, because I am a grown-ass woman who can eat whatever I want, I had for my lunch a room-temperature (and thus properly-textured) half-round of the Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam, which is the most delicious cheese in the entire universe. I smeared big honkin' scoops of it on these mini croccanti crackers from Whole Foods (which by the bye is where I got the cheese, I could crawl into that cheese case and live the rest of my life in it quite happily), and in between I ate slices of the most delicious honeycrisp apple for a palate cleanser plus also it (the apple) was, as I said, delicious, and alongside it all I drank two cups of fantastic super-dark extra-strong coffee with all of the sugars and all of the half-and-halfs. It was wonderful, and I was not hungry again until my actual dinnertime -- which is to say that, lunchwise, though probably not snackwise on account of logistics, also it beats eating Pirate's Booty straight out the bag over the sink. I'd sell a patella for a round of that fucking Mt. Tam. Who needs a patella, really? Just cut an air-hockey puck to the right size and stitch it up.

So many decisions: Real flower or artificial? Long or extra-long streamers? Lights or no lights? Over-the-shoulder or traditional corsage style?

30/40

I can't remember why this is in black-and-white; color would have revealed the full, garish spectacle of this item pinned to my clothing so much better. It's a mum, which is a Thing in Texass for the Homecoming football game. The town's young men go to one of the florists, fill out a lengthy order form, and pay all their Pizza Hut moneys for these monstrosities, which they then give to their girlfriends. It's not a casual undertaking; it's for Serious Couples only. And of course, the size and weight of your mum is indicative of your boyfriend's love for you (just like with engagement rings!). The only year I actually had a boyfriend at Homecoming was the fall of my senior year. I thought mums were hilaaaaaarious, and I thought he did too, but apparently he felt obligated to get me one, and make it big (I realized much later that this situation might have been engineered entirely via the ratfuckery of this one alleged friend of mine, who went with my boyfriend to order the fucking thing, but alas). I felt like a prize heifer taking a stroll down the midway with her minder, the whole time we were at the game. And when the boyfriend broke up with me a few weeks later, in a fit of teenage revenge-thirst I chucked it out into the very busy road in front of my house, where it met the fate of several of our favorite household pets over the years (but in a funny and satisfying way, instead of gruesome and sad, eh wot).