When I was in high school, I started making a nice set of friendships; Courtney, Elaine, Britni, Nicole to name a few. I liked to think that in high school I was sorta popular, but I was still home every Friday and Saturday night.
When I was a Junior in high school, as I am leading freshman orientation, I meet a girl who would become my "Lil Sis": Lauren. Lauren was the daughter of two of the teachers at the high school, and she had just transferred over from the rival high school. I remember going to the teacher's classroom to say hey only to see this dark haired beauty sitting in the classroom. At that point, I never once thought that I would be going on crazy adventures with this young girl, all I knew at that point was that she was the teachers' daughter.
That year, I spent an extra amount of time with one of the teachers due to one of my duties as a Tech Team member for the school. So on top of getting close with this teacher and the school coach she was married to, I also got close to their daughter. She began to call me Bubba, and I would call her Lil Sis, and we would hang out while I did work for the teachers. That summer, we had the pleasure of going to a conference together in Central Louisiana (the first of many, but probably the most important one). There, we met for the first time one of my now best friends, Geoff. After the conference was over, we said our goodbyes to Geoff and went about our merry lives.
When school started back up for my senior year, Courtney and I traveled to the city to go to the mall. I can't quite remember why we went, but she was in charge and had driven. While leaving the mall, I run into Geoff. I was very excited to see him because from what I could remember of that conference, he was a pretty cool guy. I wave and go up to him and say hi. He says hi and asks whats up. Then Courtney yells for us to hurry and leave and that was the end of that conversation. I forget in which manner I contacted him since I didn't have a phone and Facebook had not yet existed (AIM hahaha, I still use it, jealous?), but it was established that I sucked for not staying to talk to him. Didn't matter that it wasn't my fault. Also, that was probably the first and only time in my life that I didn't stop and stay to talk to someone. So I decided that the next time I was in the city, I would dedicate my time to only him and whatever he wanted to do.
Also important to note that at this point, I started giving Lauren driving lessons. Maybe not something I should be broadcasting considering her colorful driving record and abilities, I still call it a win. Before she was able to drive on her own, I would take her driving in her parents' car (sorry Momma you had to find out this way, glad I'm 600+ miles away :) ). Since Lauren knew Geoff, I figured it'd be a good idea to take her to the city with me to go see him. Her parents thought it would be good for her to visit friends she met at the conference, so they agreed to let me take her AND the car. So off we went.
We get to the city, got to Geoff's place, met the parents, and went to a house party. The house party was comprised of students from the rival high school of Geoff's, Geoff, Lauren, and myself. I had no problems meeting people so I go off and make friends, Lauren goes off and bonds with some girls, and Geoff is off doing his thing. So clearly there was alcohol at this house party, and Geoff and other friends are double fisting Natty Lights while I'm playing bloody knuckles with some guy who has allowed himself to get plastered and keeping an eye out on Lauren. At some point, a guy has eyed her and sees that not only is she attractive, but void of an alcoholic beverage. I see her tell him that she doesn't want to drink....then tell him that it was because I was watching her. Spoiler Alert: So she slips away to have a beer with this guy and two other girls. All I could think at that point was "Her dad is going to shoot me in the face and hide my body".
So me being the overachieving intellectual afraid of doing anything "bad", I instantly begin to think of ways that I can mask the fact that she has drank this one beer and she was underage and with all these other underage persons who were also drinking. How did they even get the beer? There was a lot of it now that I think about it. The first thing I did was call her parents and tell them that we're going to be a bit later than I had originally intended, but that we were safe and having a good time. Her dad gave me the okay for the curfew extension. Good job Antoine. Well before I could come up with plan B, there was a rushed exclamation from one of the party goers: "RUN THE COPS ARE HERE!" ARE YOU SH*TTING ME?!? I was so angry and scared, I had not yet written my will because clearly Annette was about to kill me when she found out.
Moral dilemmas began to rise in my brain. I wanted to run. I think one of my ingrained reactions to police was to run and never look back (or is that gun shots? Synonymous). But I couldn't leave Lauren! I had no reason to run because I was the only person who had not been drinking, but Lauren had half of a beer (which she was still holding) and I couldn't just leave her there to catch the heat. I look over my shoulder to see Geoff hopping the fence to safety. Well played sir. Clearly I had to try. I grab Lauren's hand and tell her that we need to go, we'll deal with the rest later. My plan was to go out the back gate of the fence to the car that was right beside it. Geoff had ran, he didn't live too far from the house, he would be fine. We had about 30 miles to drive so we needed the car and nothing holding us back from it. Before I could even eye the gate of the fence, police came through it. They asked us all to go into the house. One girl responded with "I'm sorry officer, I need to find my shoe". Really? Your shoe? Priorities.
It was over. No one was spared from the clutches of the police. They had even found Geoff and gotten him back to the house (hahahahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha come on you know that's funny). Everyone was looking for the hostess, who had not been found quite yet. Then right at that moment she busts through the front door and yells "EVERYBODY THE COPS ARE HERE!" Hilarious. She joins the peanut gallery. I remember one girl, who was the furthest from sober, feel the need to make the situation better. She walks up to the hostess and says "J*****, this is the guyyyyyy.....this is....this is the cop" Yeah... One officer asks all of us "who's over 18?" So I raise my hand. I am the only joined by one other. I was free, I was of legal age to HAVE alcohol and I had not drank, I was free. I also had the key to the car. I had one of those...conscience/temptation angel/devil moments:
Clearly, by that point, I had yet to fully realize the potential of my evil aptitude. Not to mention that the police was blocking Lauren's car. Looks like I was stuck. The police then began to tell everyone that they needed to vacate the premises if they did not live there and if they heard anything else or were called again, they were gonna to ticket and arrest anyone they saw upon their return.
I was home free...except I was gonna be late with my extended curfew and Annette not only did not know where I was, but she had no way to reach me. I sped as fast as legally possible to the house as to make it as close to curfew as possible. I tried to sweet talk her dad, but he didn't care about anything but getting sleep at that point, so I was in the clear on the "return my daughter" portion of my night. I got home and entered the house; Annette wasn't on the couch? She chose the one day of the year to not sleep on the couch and sleep in her own bed. THANK YOU!!!! I get to my room, derobe, and climb into bed. I hear a noise by the door. The door cracks open and I hear "You're in trouble. Talk to you in the morning". Why I ever thought I'd pass by Annette's radar was beyond me, but I was glad to be there and not arrested.
In hindsight, that night was child's play. I also didn't seem to learn my lesson as that was my first time ever having a police run in. Geoff and I ended up being pretty good friends, as well as many of the people at that party. Lauren eventually got in trouble for that night a few years later...actually that may have been my fault.
7 years later and I would've still thrown them under the bus. ~!Antoine!~
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