Last night, crazy with the sound of a hundred drums and wild coffee-induced laughter, was a great one.

The Cavalcade of Bands had been going on for about 20 years--every year on an October Saturday, a bunch of marching bands converge and compete in the thing. This year it seemed bigger, for some reason. Little matter. I was there only to enjoy it, and to videotape the performance of our school's band (or, more specifically, to ignore the band with the camera and only tape the color guard--I was doing it for their coach) as well as to take some photos of them. Naturally, the stadium lighting rendered the camera all but useless.

I have a lot of friends in the band, but I was there in the stands with Ruth, who'd come back to town for the weekend, to watch the bands. I hadn't seen her in quite a while--we were all happy to just hang out with her. We couldn't honestly hang out with her, in that way we like to--spending 10 hours watching movies of questionable value--as she had to go back at one the next day. Which is today! Wow, look--this is an entry of the future.

At any rate, I got to the band thing at five. It had started at nine or ten in the morning, and it lasted until tenish at night. I was only really there to watch finals, as our band is host and competes last, not being judged, and all the rock bands tend to be in finals. I missed about a half hour of finals, though, busy helping the colorguard, trying to get the camera from their frantic coach.

I was in marching band once. A flute. It struck me that we never ran around like a bunch of stressed out chickens like the colorguard does. Seriously, half of those girls--or more--just need to shut up and quit. There should be a legal requirement that if they are in it, they should be having fun, and not whining about everything that happens. Ah, enough of my ranting. But you know I'm right. And that they'll all stay in there, fun or no, and gripe until they get ulcers and die. The end.

The night was cold. A sweatshirt was enough, but my feet and legs were freezing, and I still haven't got the feeling back in my toes.

There were some really great bands there. But I'm not a very good judge of technicalities, or anything--I just sit there going, "Wow, marching to 'Watchman, Tell Us of the Night'? Wacky." So I won't even go into all the bands! Rah rah rah!

Afterwards, we returned the camera, and hung around in the building, waiting for our friends. I finally got a picture of the colorguard for the paper. We sat around some more, not feeling like going back to the stadium to help clean it up--it wasn't our job, after all, and anyway, they had run out of rubber gloves to handle all the garbage. Chrissy and Ty were there, too. We talked about nothing--it wasn't really important. We were planning to have everyone over at my place for the night, and we decided that everyone should just get home and sleep and come over at ten the following morning. Which is in a half hour! Wow, the entry of the FUTURE.

After everyone was back, we discussed what we were doing. Still, we didn't want to just go home.

"Let's get TACOS!" I declared. I don't particularily like tacos, even--it's just a fun word, and VK was dying for a hardshell taco. We left and ran to our cars, laughing, divvying up who was riding with who for the short drive there. VK and I were the second in the parking lot after Kat. Everyone else had taken a longer route, or, perhaps, had been stuck in traffic, so we stood around the parking lot.

"Oh, you're on the line," Kat said to VK about her parking job. It was a pretty bad one. But we had tacos to consume. Still, no one was there. Traffic, I thought, must have been traffic. We got to talking about David Bowie, which somehow is only one step off of Unico, as we began talking about that with smooth transition.

Kat hates Unico. With ungodly passion. It entertains us greatly, the fact that Unico gave her nightmares as a child. I don't know why it would. Lord Kuruku is such a wholesome character! She mentioned Toby's name and, of course, I couldn't help myself.

"Toooooby. ToooOOOoooby. You aren't lolligagging, are you? TOBY?!"

"Noooo! Get away, get away. Why?"

She backed away from me, half laughing, half frowning. I kept up the impression. She started running, I started chasing--the parking lot became another place to run around and act like we were twelve in. She commented that half the reason that she was so freaked out was that my hair, curly and parts laying over my shoulders, looked slightly like Kuruku's. I laughed, kept on doing it. Finally, the others pulled up, and Kat hid behind them. I stopped tormenting her, but she wasn't too convinced my intentions were honest. Beth told her that her lights were on her car, and Kat told her to hold me and make sure I didn't do anything. I behaved, for the most part.

We went up to the doors of the Taco Bell, and pulled. They were locked.

"What the... the sign says 24 hours!"

We pulled more, confused about the disparity between sign and door. Finally it struck us--the sign was referring to the drive-through.

"But it doesn't say 'Drive-through.' It's false advertising, let's demand we get in," Chrissy said, trying to incite revolution.

It failed. The Denny's, a hypotenuse across the freeway and a main avenue away from the cheap taco eatery, called to us. So coffee it was.

It was great catching up, even though it meant that I was going to Denny's for the third time in two days. We laughed, VK drew Draco as a flag girl, a Saito figurine was mocked for being, at a certain angle when his sword was held just so very innapropriate. In short, our minds regressed years. We were all, quite suddenly, eleven and noisy.

By the time we left it was 1:30 or so. Beth had to get her stuff from Ruth's car, and then ride with Kat home. I was riding with Ruth, which made it so we both headed for the same door on the same car, and bumped into eachother, which degenerated into seizuring against eachother like dying fish, yelling "I don't see anyone! Where are you?" We were aware that Kat and Ruth were up to something, jumping up and down. It wasn't until we stopped our childishness that we nearly collapsed with laughter.

They were, for some reason still beyond me, jumping up and down as high as they could, chanting "I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE."

In the light of day, this is not funny. It is downright stupid. But at 1:30, with a system full of caffiene, and on your second wind, this strikes you as the funniest thing ever. We continued watching them until, just as suddenly, they stopped, and Ruth and I got in her car.

As we were getting in, we heard Beth and Kat discussing the bumper stickers on a car, and Kat was pleading, "What's it say? I want to know what it says!" Beth, for her part, said "I don't know. Let's get in the car."

It struck me then that what Beth said was hilarious (and, like the jumping, is no longer) because it was in the tone of a mother talking to her five-year-old.

They did finally get in the car. As we pulled out of the parking space, I looked at the car in question. I supposed what Kat was asking about was a bumper sticker with one kanji symbol on it. It looked like the one for "fire" to me--that would be one they'd sell, after all. Crazy "language-is-trendy" people. I can't wait 'til being Irish is hip. Then I can eat all the potatoes I want and no one will ever laugh! AH HAH HAH HAH!

Driving down the avenue, we were laughing, still. Kat's huge van came up to the car, and Ruth rolled down her window. Beth was yelling, from her passenger side, "I HAVE TO PEE!" over and over, and I bent over laughing as Ruth replied in kind. This happened again, as we passed them.

"The next time they come up," I vowed, "I'm yelling 'I WET THEM!'" Ruth thought this a good plan.

When they came up, I got as far as "I" before laughing so hard I was rendered useless.

On the fourth pass, Ruth was rolling down her window again (she rolled it up after every pass, because the night air was cold. This wasn't so for Beth, because the windows in the van are manual) and she fumbled, locking the doors. "Oops."

At that moment, either Kat, or Ruth, or both of them, swerved. The two cars came freakily close to eachother before their drivers realized it, and pulled away. Yet, somehow, I could only feel the slight adrenaline--drowned out by caffiene and an overwhelming sense that all was right in the world, damn it--and nothing else. We decided not to play the game anymore, but it seemed to not really phase us otherwise.

Driving on up the hill to home, it struck me that I missed Ruth then more than I had before, when she first left town. Even after the party today (which has NOW HAPPENED! This really is the entry of the future) I didn't feel that way. Perhaps it's only in driving, cocconed from the night air and blaring "Watchman Tell Us of the Night" that I could really appreciate anything at all.

And, getting out of the car and looking at the stars, I grasped at the night desprately in my mind, and the lyrics "May this moment last forever," went through my head. I shrugged at the night sky, still freezing, and went inside, hoping that I'd always have nights like this. That I'd always, somehow, be able to be eleven and giggling in a parking lot.

Perhaps that's all we're grasping for, in the end. The straws of childhood.