The First Annual Thanksgiving Weekend Talent Show
A game can stop quickly after something gets broken. Such is the case with this particular game of foursquare, and it was my turn to play the role of the jackass who does the breaking.
Apparently I need to work on my overhead backwards throw. It runs a little high. Likes to crash into fluorescent lights and really bust those fuckers. The game ends, everyone laughs at the long tube that lays half shattered on the concrete floor.
My bad.
The group quickly falls away into two separate activities: One involves sitting against one wall on, around, and tangled between various limbs and squares of loose carpet. The other, running around and kicking a tennis ball twelve times its normal size.
It's fun to see how close you can kick it at someones face before their nose gets smashed.
I pick up what I can right away and shuffle towards the garbage bin.
Give me 'til winter break and I'll get you that new light I owe you, I tells the Host.
Yeah sure, he says. His tone is sarcastic. Which sort of baffles me. I don't know why I wouldn't replace it. I suppose many objects around here have been lost to the shenanigans housed in this very basement, but I can't think of anything in particular, that I have been responsible for at least, that hasn't been replaced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's something, but so large as a big ol' tube bulb?
I mean... I'll definitely need to put some research into where the hell I'm supposed to get my hands on one of those things, but mark my words it will be replaced.
By the time I dispose of the last few bits and pieces, the group has reformed into one large mass of people huddled at the side of the room against the wall.
I am standing barefoot on the concrete.
Aren't your toes chilly, Andrew!?
A little bit.
I'm bored.
A couple of people inquire, rather meekly I might add, as to whether or not we plan on getting the game started again.
No one responds. Everyone is talking to the person to his or her left. There are few coherent conversations taking place.
I'm still bored.
I want to do something.
I can't remember if it was my idea or if someone else tossed it up into the air, but either way I grabbed onto it and proposed it a few times. Let's do a talent show.
Why not, right?
I'm bored. We're bored. We're not doing anything. Let's play a game.
I stand up and try to get it started.
No one plays along.
Now, there are plenty of reasons I could be standing in front of a group of my friends trying to M.C. an impromptu First Annual Thanksgiving Weekend Talent Show. Here is a list of a few that were just not the case:
1) I wanted people to look at me.
2) I had a special talent that I wanted to show off, I just needed any kind of excuse to do so.
3) I wanted to see what secret talents anyone elsein the room might have had.
4) If I don't get enough attention I go into cardiac arrest.
5) I really like talent shows.
In actually, there was only one real reason for it all. I like goofing around. More importantly, I like goofing around in groups.
Is there anything harmless about an impromptu talent show? Not that I can think of. In fact, it's probably an opportunity for a very goofy occurrence. And I love the goofies.
I just want somebody to play along.
And while a talent show does take place, with only one non-participant using the all too familiar "I'm allergic to cats and am currently focusing on battling respiratory failure" excuse, it's just something to pass the time. And a surprising number of people whine about how they can't think of anything. And an even more surprising number of people don't even whine, they just refuse to play along.
Why? Why not? What do you have to lose? Is there someone here you're trying to impress or are worried about embarrassing yourself in front of? I mean... seriously. How long have we known each other?
Sure, some people played along. And it was a silly way to pass the time. And it was nothing to actually get worked up over. And I wouldn't say I'm actually worked up, persay. I'm more confused. It's an opportunity to not be bored.
Why not play along?
Apparently I need to work on my overhead backwards throw. It runs a little high. Likes to crash into fluorescent lights and really bust those fuckers. The game ends, everyone laughs at the long tube that lays half shattered on the concrete floor.
My bad.
The group quickly falls away into two separate activities: One involves sitting against one wall on, around, and tangled between various limbs and squares of loose carpet. The other, running around and kicking a tennis ball twelve times its normal size.
It's fun to see how close you can kick it at someones face before their nose gets smashed.
I pick up what I can right away and shuffle towards the garbage bin.
Give me 'til winter break and I'll get you that new light I owe you, I tells the Host.
Yeah sure, he says. His tone is sarcastic. Which sort of baffles me. I don't know why I wouldn't replace it. I suppose many objects around here have been lost to the shenanigans housed in this very basement, but I can't think of anything in particular, that I have been responsible for at least, that hasn't been replaced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's something, but so large as a big ol' tube bulb?
I mean... I'll definitely need to put some research into where the hell I'm supposed to get my hands on one of those things, but mark my words it will be replaced.
By the time I dispose of the last few bits and pieces, the group has reformed into one large mass of people huddled at the side of the room against the wall.
I am standing barefoot on the concrete.
Aren't your toes chilly, Andrew!?
A little bit.
I'm bored.
A couple of people inquire, rather meekly I might add, as to whether or not we plan on getting the game started again.
No one responds. Everyone is talking to the person to his or her left. There are few coherent conversations taking place.
I'm still bored.
I want to do something.
I can't remember if it was my idea or if someone else tossed it up into the air, but either way I grabbed onto it and proposed it a few times. Let's do a talent show.
Why not, right?
I'm bored. We're bored. We're not doing anything. Let's play a game.
I stand up and try to get it started.
No one plays along.
Now, there are plenty of reasons I could be standing in front of a group of my friends trying to M.C. an impromptu First Annual Thanksgiving Weekend Talent Show. Here is a list of a few that were just not the case:
1) I wanted people to look at me.
2) I had a special talent that I wanted to show off, I just needed any kind of excuse to do so.
3) I wanted to see what secret talents anyone elsein the room might have had.
4) If I don't get enough attention I go into cardiac arrest.
5) I really like talent shows.
In actually, there was only one real reason for it all. I like goofing around. More importantly, I like goofing around in groups.
Is there anything harmless about an impromptu talent show? Not that I can think of. In fact, it's probably an opportunity for a very goofy occurrence. And I love the goofies.
I just want somebody to play along.
And while a talent show does take place, with only one non-participant using the all too familiar "I'm allergic to cats and am currently focusing on battling respiratory failure" excuse, it's just something to pass the time. And a surprising number of people whine about how they can't think of anything. And an even more surprising number of people don't even whine, they just refuse to play along.
Why? Why not? What do you have to lose? Is there someone here you're trying to impress or are worried about embarrassing yourself in front of? I mean... seriously. How long have we known each other?
Sure, some people played along. And it was a silly way to pass the time. And it was nothing to actually get worked up over. And I wouldn't say I'm actually worked up, persay. I'm more confused. It's an opportunity to not be bored.
Why not play along?
posted by AHaynes at 3:17 AM
4 Comments:
Agreed on all counts. While it was still a decent time, I could just feel that it had the potential to turn into something fabled and special like when we burst into "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" or some similar impromptu scene. Yet, people were being wet blankets and not having as much fun with it as they could have. And as for the light, Saturday was the first day my parents were like actually starting to get fed up. Not only the light broke, but there's also now a large scratch on a wall, a ping-pong paddle is broken, and they weren't happy about people using the cat-claw-clipper to cut up magazine inserts. I think, after five years, many flourescent lights, a microwave, a foosball table, a type-writer, and numerous stains, there patience is running a little thin. We've began to push the envelope and we're going to need to watch it. I have to say, you're probably right when you always only half jokingly say we should start a collection fund for them.
Oh yeah, also, if you actually were planning on reimbursing my folks for that light, then I apologize for doubting you. I don't exactly keep a ledger describing who has broken what and you can't really blame me for being skeptical as nothing that's been broken at my house has been replaced as of yet. We can't exactly expect that it would but i'm just saying, based on prior knowledge and all it seemed unlikely.
Understood. You will have a shiny new fluorescent bulb in your hands, coupled even with a Hallmark card of the sincerest apologies, before the Christmas holiday has run its course.
Yeah I'll have to come up with a better excuse next year. I am completely confident that with a whole year to think about my excuse for next year's talent show will be ten to twenty times more interesting and exciting. It might even be my talent. That or I could just keel over and die if the cat thing still bothers me, in which case I would cry if I could never enter Danny's house without being drugged into stupor.
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