The spring and summer before I moved to St. Louis--end of my sophomore cusp of my junior high school days, the beginnings of licenses, the end of hanging around with nothing to do but watch Degrassi--I was always with the gruesome twosome Liss and Knoze. The three of us were a weird crew, but there were were.
It didn't even matter who was speaking the words at some point. I was going to summer camp in a month. None of us were quite old enough to have jobs. "Hey, let's hang out." "What should we do?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "I don't know." "Let's just go--"
When someone did have a semblance of desire, it was exciting. On this one summer day in 2004, Lissa really wanted to see Mean Girls. I had my license but couldn't drive more than one passenger until I was 16.5. I asked my mom to take us. She said yes because she wasn't working at the time and generally up for drop-offs. My mom never made me feel bad for driving me places, which I always really appreciated. I got ready. But suddenly Alice Sr. was pale, half-opened eyes.
"I'm just not feeling that well." She said. I made the calls. No on Lissa's mom. No for Knoze. We could walk. It was far. I told my mom we'd go another day. She said, "No, it's really okay." I hadn't heard much about the movie besides the Parent Trap chick was in it, so I truly didn't care. But the lady grabbed her keys and walked carefully to her car. She drove at quarter-speed as to not throw up. The theatre was about ten minutes away. She stayed quiet and we respectfully said thank you. I worried a little, but there was kind of a goldenness to the whole thing. She said she's be fine to pick us up, and I knew she would be.
Mean Girls was an important movie for me to see. I would have seen it another time, I'm sure, but maybe not in theaters, maybe not before my move, maybe not before I needed to hear Cady explain the uselessness of judging a mathlete with a unibrow. Thanks to my mom.
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