It's hard to believe that almost 15 years ago, I was a fifteen-year-old girl. I had yet to get the braces off my teeth, and I thought I knew EVERYTHING. And not the way that 15-year-old girls today know everything, if you know what I mean. More like, I wanted to believe that I was experienced, even though I was still wet behind the ears and thought that people had sex by rubbing up against each other. What? I was into music back then, not gaining knowledge of the carnal variety!
So one night when my friends decided that it would be really awesome to climb up Blue Mountain and slide down the cement slides on GARBAGE BAGS in the rain, I thought the idea was gnarly. Who wouldn't?
Now, from afar, or even from sort of close up, the 'mountain' does not look as if it would be much of a challenge to climb. But I am here to tell you that it is. And erase the notion out of your head that I was an inactive teenager. There was no such thing fifteen years ago because back then parents would force their kids to go and ride their bikes for ten hours straight. If they so much as saw you in the house between breakfast and lunch you were in big trouble. And your European grandmother wrestled with you every morning to make sure you were wearing an undershirt before you left the house. In the summer. I know this from experience.
So my amazingly bright friend's and I loaded up on garbage bags and metal bowls. Because THAT'S a good idea. Friction of metal and cement? All signs point to sparks flying and asses burning. But we are all intelligent people right? Wouldn't you guys think of these genius things too?
It took us about an hour or two to climb all the way to the top of Blue Mountain. Most people, in order to get to where the cement slides begin, take a chairlift up, but we were bad ass and we climbed. And slipped. And climbed. It was very wet, and very slippery, but with some effort and a lot of complaining, we made it to the top.
Let me just stop right now and post a little video of what it looks like to properly go down these slides. You see, you pay a nice person to allow you to use the chairlift. And once you get to the top, another nice person tells you a few simple safety rules, and then lets you use a specially designed seat on wheels. The most important feature of this seat on wheels is the brake. Something we were lacking on this night to end all nights. So take a quick look and see how fun this actually is when you aren't careening down a hill, fearing for your life:
Here were all are, at the top of the mountain. Standing in a row with our hands on our hips thinking we conquered the world. And the nervous excitement is building between all of us, making us feel like we were best friends forever. I loved these guys man. Until they forced convinced me to go down first. So I sat down on my garbage bag and pushed off.
The ride down was awesome. I felt free, and crazy and scared and part of something. You know, the lame things you feel when you are a teenager. So I am flying down this seemingly giant mountain and finally reality, and then logic, start to set in. I have no way to stop, or slow down. I am kind of using my feet in front of me but I can feel that the bottoms of my shoes are heating up at an alarming rate. Picture Indiana Jones when he is trying to stop the mine car in Temple of Doom. But then I start to relax a little bit because I think "It's okay, at the bottom of the slide there is a lengthy straight part that will act as my brake and I will just come to a gentle stop".
You know where this is going right? If you guess worst case scenario, you are right! At the very start of the straight away that I thought would save me, is a FENCE. The very thing that was working to keep us out was now working against me to keep me in! Oh god. I am now officially freaking out. The fence is closed over the top of the slide, therefore creating a tiny space between the bottom of the fence and the top of the slide. Almost like a little pocket that will fit my legs nicely. But only my legs. I slide right under the fence and am stopped by my ribs. OUCH!
I am now lying with half my body under the slide. I take note of my surroundings, mentally feel my bones and hey! I feel really good! And then like a bomb about to explode I hear my best friend Ciara, on her metal bowl, right behind me. She is laughing and having fun and I am all shit! I am stuck under this fennnn....OOOF! She has slammed into me and wedged me further under the fence. Now, she is skinny and feathery except for her boobs and it's not so bad except for the fact that I can feel my ribs splintering a little against the bottom of the fence but it's okay! It's funny! We are both laughing or asses off and thinking we just did the greatest thing in the world. We are tangled up in a bunch of limbs and hair and braces and we can't stop laughing. And then, ummm....what is that sound? That, uh, loud sound of a teenage boy barreling down the mountain? Oh yes. The one that is about to slam into the back of the both of us.
Imagine the weight of an elephant sitting on your rib. Throw in a a few houses and the Titanic, and that is the pain I felt when he slammed into us. All of a sudden I am not a cool hip teen aged girl anymore, I am a wailing baby who's parents have left her on someone's doorstep. Somehow I am dragged from the bottom of the fence and everything is happening so fast, but also in slow motion and I am crying and we are all walking home and I feel like a tool because I am so upset and the boy who I had a huge crush on has given me a Treasure Troll ring and all I can think is "Where the hell did he get a Treausre Troll ring from?" and I know we are going to get in SOOOO much trouble because I need a hospital and we have to tell Ciara's mom that we are all stupid assholes and got hurt while being stupid assholes.
We wake up Ciara's mom in the middle of the night and ask her to take me to the hospital. With the way I was carrying on she most likely thought I was dying, or in labor. In the flurry of everything I honestly did think that I was dying. I have sticks and leaves in my hair, tear stains down my face and dirt all over my clothes. Hot. An x-ray is taken and a doctor flippantly tells me that nothing is broken and I am fine. Well shit. All that for nothing. I don't even have a battle scar or an open wound to go and impress the boys with. Sigh. God I am such a stupid dick.
So anyway parents, know that your kids are doing stuff like this! I am here to advise and let you know that this is happening. Well, they are doing this or doing the sex. Because damn kids these days want to be baby mama's at an early age, kna mean?
Also, Ciara, David, Tyler: are you guys up for round number two? Because you know I am! Bring it on! And this time David can mend me and we won't have to wake up yer mom!
K+C circa 1991
