What You've Been Waiting For...

Don’t ask me why I agreed to go with Sam, Jessica and Taryn. I don’t know why I did. Sam convinced me. True, I was originally the one begging to go (I just had to see Sam spaz out over this girl at least once, not to mention that I just wanted to meet her; she had become a legend!) Either way, when Sam called me up freaking out that Jessica was dragging her along to some random bar and bringing Taryn, I could tell in her tone of voice that this meant bad news for me. I was right, of course. After she begged me to go (though she still claims that she ‘told me’ I was going … just like she ‘told me’ I was going to see Dark Knight and I still haven’t seen it), I pretty much said ‘you know what? Screw it, I’m in’, and went along for the ride.
The car ride there still is one of my favorite memories. I wasn’t entirely sure where we were headed (convincing my mother to let me go to a bar with two chicks in their twenties sure was fun, by the way). Jessica was driving; Taryn was in the passenger seat. I sat behind Taryn (somehow I thought Sam had arranged that so she could look at Taryn from a side-view as we drove but she denies it).

Sitting in the car with these three was, to put it simply, was amusing. Why would something like this that seemed so genuinely common be so amusing? My guess was the fact that Sam had made, um, ‘comments’ about Taryn in the past (I use the term ‘comment’s lightly). Holding in all the smart remarks, all the little jokes that I wanted to make, was giving me an ulcer. My stomach muscles were getting sore from not saying anything. Sam had told me once that Taryn made her stomach hurt, too. I’m guessing it was for different reasons than for my sudden discomfort. I think her stomachache was more like the ones I get when watching certain Rascal Flatts videos. Either way, not making jokes was killing me. I think little quiet-non-joke-viruses were eating my gallbladder.

Every once and a while, I’d glance over at Sam. Since she knew me so well, I knew she could see it on my face that I just needed to say something. However, I wasn’t allowed. If I ever shot her a Ha-Ha-I-Know-A-Good-Joke-look, she’d reply with a Just-Wait-Until-We-Get-To-The-Bar-And-I-Kill-You-With-A-Toothpick-look. I decided to keep quiet just because it would be easier and we could all win. Plus, Sam’s sister scared me. Our first ever communication experience was her yelling at me. She called me. Sam, even though she was sitting next to me, felt that she couldn’t exactly verbalize her thoughts, so she texted me.

“She makes my stomach hurt!” The text read. My mind tried to scroll through my bank of jokes (mainly because it was easy; anything involved with a stomachache could be retaliated with anything involving the word ‘eating’. But thanks to my decreasing speed with jokes and the fact that I was a pansy and wouldn’t have even said it if I thought of one, I couldn’t get the shot off.) About the time that Akon’s ‘I Wanna Love You’ came on and Taryn started singing, it started getting harder not to laugh. I buried my face in my arms and tried to think of all the reasons why this wasn’t funny. Couldn’t even name one. Eventually, I had to taunt my friend.

“Hey, Taryn,” I called to the front seat. “Turn this song up!” I flashed Sam an ear-to-ear grin and she shot me the look about the death by toothpicks. Actually, this time the look was so evil and angry that my soul felt cold for a moment.

“Okay!” Taryn yelled and blasted the volume. “And you can call me ‘Bubbles’!” My smile suddenly got wider.

“Bubbles, you say, eh?” I answered. I was now staring at Sam’s reaction. “Are you sure you don’t like ‘Taryn’?”

“Bubbles is better.” She answered seriously.

“Really? I think that-"

“I’m begging you,” Sam said to me. Her tone of voice told me that I was in trouble. “Just call her ‘Bubbles’ and end this conversation.” I almost laughed but kept it in and just enjoyed the song and Sam’s reactions again.

Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’ came on next. I prayed to God, Buddha, Natalie or whoever was looking down on me that we would arrive at the bar soon. If not, I was pretty sure I was going to throw up jokes. And that didn’t seem medically possible.