2.) My parents tend to take elaborate/not too elaborate vacations. They haul the trailer around the country and make pits stops to check out the good ol' U.S. of A. They like it. I like it. I get the house to myself when they are gone. They did this while I was being a cool high school kid drinking my caramel macchiatos.
The above points are relevant to how the events of one summer night played out. Let me set the scene for you:
Three friends hanging out at a Starbucks, drinking caramel macchiatos and not enjoying it. We were looking for trouble. We were looking for danger. Our friend Mark lived close and we decided that he needed to be hanging out with us. However, we waited a good two hours after deciding this and in fact actually doing anything about it. The party moved to the local Denny's where we consumed more coffee and further agreed that Mark needed to be around. Reaching the 1 a.m. mark on the clock, our quite little town had long since shut it's lights off. However, we were jazzed up on caffeine and ready for some Mark Time.
We drive to Mark's house and parked my then boyfriend's van down the street. Mark's house was dark. No one was awake. I feel that I should interject that I was not the only of our friends to have strict parents. Mark's... with all do respect, were like mini Napoleons. This did not hinder our spirits. We noticed the garage door was open and snuck in through the side of his house. We knew the layout, so even in the pitch black of the house were were able to find our way. Through the living room, past the kitchen, around the sleeping dog, up the stairs and into Mark's room. We did all of this in complete ninja silence.
Mark's House, First Floor
And there he was... Sleeping like a little angel, mouth agape and slightly snoring. We three crept around his bed and hovered.
Below conversation had in whispers:
"Maaaaarrkkk...Maaaaaaaaaaarkkk....."
Then with the stir only a 17-year-old Mark could make, "AHHH!!! Oh, hey guys... What's up?"
"Whatcha doing?"
"Sleeping... How'd you get in?"
"Through the garage. Wanna hang out..."
"I'm going back to bed guys. Just don't wake up the dog on the way out and DON'T knock over the garbage cans either."
"Ok, byyyyyye..."
Creeping back down the stairs, someone ended up waking the dog (Dan) which then began its repeated high pitch bark. This put us into a scramble as we ran through the house, shoving each other out of the way, finally reaching the garage and only to be moments away from exiting the house when in our intense panic mode, someone (Dan) knocked over a garbage can. The event ended up being as much as a disaster as a success.
When we arrived back at the van, we thought, "Who else should we wake up?" We then began one of those epic high school nights. From Mark's house we drove to Colin's. Ah, Colin's parents... Some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Both pastors, their house was right next to the church where they both worked/preached/practiced (?).
Colin's House, First Floor
Entering Colin's house was always easy because his parents never locked the door. Colin had no dog and his room was in the basement. So we took it up a notch. When entering the back of the house, we had to pass through the kitchen in order to get downstairs. His kitchen contained one of those bread garages (I can't remember if that's what they are called or if that's what I call them, maybe a little bit of both). I also can't remember how we got this idea, but we grabbed the bread from the garage and headed down to wake up Colin. Creeping down the stairs, we reached his room and crept in, same as our excursion with Mark. Instead of waking Colin up right away, we decided it would be better to dress his bed in bread and theeeen wake him him.
We did so. And we did so.
Again, the following dialogue should be read in whispers:
"Colin... Coooooliiinnnnn..."
"HEY! Oh, hey! What are you guys doing?"
"Oh, nothin'. We gotta go..."
"Is that bread?"
"Bye!"
"Don't wake my parents up..."
Up and out of the house with bread in hand. Chas was next.
Chas had a big house that none of us were that familiar with. In fact, I don't think I had ever been in his house. Upon our attempt to break in, we noticed he had one of those fancy key pads on his front door, for like a security code. None of us were up for getting arrested, so we took our bread and headed to Brian's house.
Chas's House
Brian's parents, also trusting citizens, always left their front door open. And this time, we parked in the driveway and helped ourselves into Brian's house. We tip-toed down the basement to find Brian asleep on the couch. By this time it was close to 3 a.m. and instead of waking him up "bread style" we decided to seal up the bag and pull up some floor to crash.
We all awoke in the morning to one of those days that make you feel brand new. Brian never asked how we got there or what we were doing. We just hit the road. The sun was shinning, we were able to put the windows down on the van and someone put on some Saves The Day and that's exactly how we felt. We all got caramel macchiatos and went home.
Later, Colin called Dan and complained about not being able to make a sandwich.
Mark called me and said, "My parents are pissed!"
