Kicking it old School

Of course a visit back home would not be complete without being woken up at daybreak by your parents. See my parents have gotten wise and removed all clocks from my old bedroom. Therefore, when I ask what time it is when they wake me up, they can say 9 o’clock or something late to get me out of bed. Only when I emerge from the shower do I realize it is really 7:30! Anyway, they had good reason to wake me up early Saturday morning, a church run….what, I am sure God would not mind if I got a few extra hours of sleep! Actually my parent’s church was hosting the annual Resurrection Run in honor of the town celebration ‘Gretna Days’ (yeah, don’t ask). Here is the conversation my mom and I had about a week earlier.
Mom: “so Lindsay, since you are going to be back in town, would you like to run in a race for the church on Saturday”.
Me: “sure, how long is it”.
Mom: “they have a 1, 3, and 5 mile run”.
Me: “sign me up for the 5 mile (drop in a bucket since I am ½ marathon training for a friend)”.
Mom: “good, I already did, oh and it is at 7am”.
Me: “uhhhh, no I change my mind”
Mom: “but Lindsay, it is for the church”
I guess that was supposed to end the discussion. Getting out ruled by a higher power, okay, gotta pick my fights better next time. Yes, the day after my riotus 10 year reunion, I was woken at 6am sharp. After I washed the hungover stench off me, I headed over with my parents to the race gathering point. Mind you, everyone seemed glad to be up at dawn, and here I come dragging my sorry self into the crowd. I probably still had a bit of stagger to me and looked like hell run over because everyone kept asking if I was okay. I eased their troubled minds by saying “no I am not dying, just really hungover”. Now not appropriate talk for a church event, but hey they know my stripes already. While running (okay, mild shuffling of the feet, I was in no mood to run) my companions and I joked about my condition and pointed out good places to puke if I suddenly got the urge. The route left the church, pasted the old high school, circled a neighborhood and doubled back to the church. Well this was the 3 mile route, the 5 mile sorry sacks had to pass the church and hit a two mile loop around ‘old town’ Gretna which included the most evil hill ever….Westplains Road! Since I considered this nothing more than a fun run (the finish line was marked with a roll of duct tape and supported a ‘finish’ banner from two step ladders), I figured I could take my good sweet time. I stopped to chat (okay complain) with my parents and get a drink of water at the 3 mile point. I probably spent a good five minutes small talking (did you pass by the Lunzmen’s house, how are you feeling, yes you used to baby-sit their sons, blah blah blah) before they told me I should get back and finish the run. The whole time I am not taking the run serious at all (waving at people, cracking jokes as my headache dwindled, stopping to talk to people, etc) and I finished with a gloriously sloooow time (probably close to 12 minute miles or something). While enjoying the free pancake feed at the church afterwards, the organizer came into the fellowship hall and announced that the award ceremony would be beginning shortly. Award ceremony…huh…for a fun run? Turns out I got second place in the female 25-30 age category. Ah ha ha ha….probably only two people who signed up, but oh well. The best part was that they made me come up to the front to accept my giant silver medal, and people in the crowd would say “hey that’s the hungover girl, wadda go hungover girl”. I took it like a champ and faux flexed my muscles when accepting the prize. First time I’ve ever been rewarded for being hungover. Ah ha ha ha.

After a quick shower, I was able to head down to main street and watch the Gretna Days Parade. Yeah small town parade means a shit ton of Shriners. I guess the allure of driving a mini car around diminished as I got older, but I still want one of those tassel caps! Anyway, I had a choice spot with my parents, Brandon (Shannon’s husband), and their two little girls. One thing that has improved over the years, is the amount of candy they toss into the crowd. I remember wrestling out with other kids to secure the lone pixi stick or super bubble gum piece. Now the practically coat the pavement! This year they also handed out popsicles (the ones where a tube of colored water is frozen in plastic and you have to mangle the ends to suck out the delicious nectar). Anyway, they were handing out so much candy and popsicles that the girls started refusing them! Seriously, Liliana would say “no mister, I have enough”. Ah ha ha ha. It capped it off when she started throwing the excess back into the street (in front of some other kids). It was a riot but I am actually quite proud of her. Anyway, the highlight was badgering my friends Rollie, Jacque, Heath, and Dru when their “Hardies Chiropractic” float rolled by.

That night, I headed into Omaha for my older sister’s bachelorette party. One major difference between Omaha and large urban cities (NYC or Chicago) is mode of transportation. When a group of girls in the city want to go out, we just grab cabs or hop on the subway. Well Omaha doesn’t have either of those options. Okay I can throw in a covered wagon joke here, but you get the point. Anyway, I needed a way to transport the group of girls around the city without the blemish of drunk driving. We went though ideas of renting a limo and assigning DD’s until the perfect option appeared….rent a school bus! Yeah, I guess you can rent school buses (regular and short bus size) for about $30 an hour! Sold! I tried to secure a short bus for us since we only had ten girls attending the party, but they were all out. Therefore, I had to settle on a regular sized bus which could hold 50 people! Not letting a big bus go to waste, we arranged for the groom’s bachelor party (one of many I hope) to be held on the same night.

The group of girls met at an apartment complex club house while the guys met at a bar across the street. During our ‘girl party’, we had a passion expert come in a present her complete line of passion products. Okay, no use trying to glam it up, it was a sex toy show! Yeah she knew what she was talking about because she had personal stories for almost every item in the collection. She was quite good though, warming up the girls with softballs like lotions, massage oils, edible creams, etc before whipping out the dildo collection. Yeah she had small ones that fit on your finger and monstrous ones with harnesses, etc. While we passed them around and played with them (not in that way sicko, just trying out the features like the one with a light show and the one that bent at a 45 degree angle and rotated…like sticking a watermelon…well you get the idea) one girl shrieked “oh my God, there is a face on this one!”. The passion expert explained that the company she represented was Japanese and it was illegal to sell “sex toys”. Therefore, they had be made funny and marketed as “adult novelty”. After closer inspection, they all did have an elephant, beaver, butterfly, rabbit, or face on them (still cannot get over the smiley face on the tip of the thing…ah ha ha ha you enjoying it huh). Anyway, the most amusing one, in my opinion, was the piston powered dildo! Yeah is started out at 6” but it could expand and retract with a piston while rotating the whole time. Basically you can just aim it and literally go fuck yourself! Ah ha ha ha!

She wrapped up the presentation just as the boys headed over to the clubhouse. While waiting for the bus to pick the entire group up, we amused ourselves by chasing the groom around the room with the piston penis! Yep, we are that immature. The group headed down to the Old Market (aka the hip bar district for Omaha) and dropped the boys off at Billy Frogs. The girls went around the block to Upstream. After a drink and a shot, the VERY intoxicated bride started whimpering for the groom. Okay, how is it going to be a bachelorette party when we are hanging out with the groom? I guess it is really sweet that they can’t stand to be separated…everyone now…awwwww. Anyway, we headed over to the bar and joined the guys. The bride was quite drunk and suddenly decided to get a piggy-back ride from the groom…too bad she didn’t warn him. She jumped on and took a huge tumble! Ouch…oh she’ll live. The whole time I am thinking, how is this lightweight related to me? Maybe I should cut back on being an alcoholic or something.

After closing out the bar, we hoped back on the bus. Now it was annoying to be the only kept head in the entire bunch because we were one short on the ride home. I spent 15 minutes searching the bathrooms, sidewalk, and any other location the group suggested to find our lost one. Eventually it dawned on some guy to tell me the guy left early to meet up for a birthday party. Thanks a-hole! I lost my grumpiness (cannot believe that is a Microsoft accepted word) once the groom was forced to sing “I’m a little teapot” for the entire group in exchanged for his wallet…yeah he was a bit drunk. Needless to say, my parents got to know their future son-in-law better on the ride back home in the minivan. Here are some pictures. Angela (the bride and my sister) is wearing the green tank top. The groom (Brad) is in the tan shirt.