“WHAT DID IT TASTE LIKE!?”

Laughter comes in a few forms. There’s the anxious laughter, the mostly fake laughter that’s used when you don’t want the situation to get awkward, and the genuine laughter. Sometimes the first two have to be used before the genuine laughter can come out. The place I laugh the most is in the music room. Most people think band kids or just music kids in general are a bunch of big nerds – and they are absolutely correct. The biggest group of socially awkward geeks I have ever met, but that’s what makes it the funnest place in the building. However, like any group of people, most of us had to go through the awkward-laughter-at-bad-jokes-in-attempt to-get-closer phase. But the event that cut all the tension, was when the entire music program went to Funtown.

I was nervous to go, because although I had fun in the band room joking around and making music with the group, I thought that when we were in a different setting everyone would just off in their own little friend groups and I’d be wondering around the grounds alone because none of my true ‘outside the classroom’ friends were in the music program. Thankfully, I was mistaken. I spent the day with some of the goofiest kids, and we had the time of our lives.

Throughout the day I kept forgetting that I was actually a grade older than two of them and two grades older than one of them. I knew them all from band and chorus, but I’d never really spent time with any of them talking about non-musical things. We were basically just four random kids that didn’t necessarily have a designated ‘click’ to follow around, so we banded together for the day. It was the best coincidence that could have happened. I just remember us all laughing until we were gripping our faces because it hurt so much throughout the day. The first time, when us four fully grown teenagers all crammed ourselves into one small teacup ride.

To really drive home the point of just how crammed we were, I’ll say that I am 5 foot 7, so not a tiny person, and everyone else on that ride was bigger and or taller than myself (especially the boys). All of our legs were killing during the ride, but we still laugh about it to this day, as well as beg the question, “what the hell were we thinking?” There were so many wonderful moments of laughter, and though I’ll never be able to remember them all, there was one time in particular that I’ll never forget. For the sake of this assignment, I will refer to my group members as Jake, Mark, and Cleo.

Mark forgot to bring his wallet, so he didn’t have money to buy a drink. He refused when other people offered to buy him stuff, so we felt bad, but, when we found a table to sit at, there was a full drink in a styrofoam cup that someone left behind. So of course I joke around with him and say “Hey there’s a full drink right, here just drink that.” Jake and Cleo being the reasonable people they are, argue that that’s definitely a terrible idea, seeing as we were in an amusement park and should absolutely not trust a random drink we find somewhere. Mark didn’t say much about it, just gave a sort of… look. I guess we all just moved on and ate our fries and stuff because none of us realized how thirsty Mark was until he was throwing the large, empty styrofoam cup away in the trash can next to us. The next few moments consisted of; “Wait- did you actually drink that!?” “What if it was laced or had alcohol in it or something!?” “What even was it? Root Beer? Dr. Pepper? Coke?” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW, WHAT DID IT TASTE LIKE??” “MARK!” I was laughing the whole time, and after much frustration at Mark’s nonchalant answers, Cleo and Jake joined in on the laughter too.

It was one of those moments that can’t be recreated or even told well, but it was the funniest thing to us at the time. We still joke about that today, and not to worry, Mark is completely fine.

“Teacups Ride – Disneyland, CA” by wannablibrarian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.