Flashbacks

I will be the first to admit that high school was my personal hell which seems to contradict my recent gung-ho behavior towards my impending "10-year Reunion." However, I absolutely hated being in high school. My only decent memories are extracted from my experience with the band, and I am oddly comfortable admitting this on my public website. Yes, that's right, I embraced my band-geekiness, even advocating that students wear their band shirts on game days, much like the cheerleaders, dance team, and players would. I was laughed at and taken anything but seriously.

I am not entirely negative about those horrid four years of life, as I do have several good memories. One of which is reflected in my new title. Shannon and Crista and I would have sleep overs at each other's homes (mostly Shannon's, though, since she had a pimped-out basement complete with carpeted metal poles, a menagerie of coke paraphernalia, and a cool counter top that looked like a bar, but really just had board games stored in it). These sleepovers (which did include sleep, since I was involved) never went without the appropriate sized stash of full-calorie Mt. Dew and double-stuffed Oreos. We could exist the entire night and early morning simply on this combination of caffeine and disgusting amount of sugar. I am careful to make the distinction between full-calorie Mt. Dew and Diet Mt. Dew, because at the time, we would rather drink back-washed flouride treatment than Diet Mt. Dew. The absurdity! Flash-forward three years when we all three seemed to have an epiphany while sharing a dorm room at NIU and trying to ward off evil freshman, that Diet Mt. Dew was actually sort of...what?...refreshing and light? I think Erin Hade reintroduced us to the healthier form of the drink we could formerly not live without as she appeared to have her own dorm room stocked with the tasty beverage -- and this was before people started freaking about the Y2K scare. I have now gone a step lower by preferring Caffeine Free Diet Mt. Dew, which some people claim is like drinking "colored water." Ahem. What a glorious day that would be when Diet Mt. Dew flows freely from my kitchen faucet, and its glorious yellow-green hue and sweet citrus taste can be obtained at my will to quench the thirst that craves the drink daily.

I was prompted to write this post after reading an MSN article that can be found here. I think many of you will enjoy it if you haven't read it already, and it makes my insecure high school alter-ego feel so much better about myself and that I never married John Cusak (or was ever serenaded by a man in a tan trench coat outside my window with a giant boombox).