I was browsing facebook the other night and found this posted:
Calling all past Drill Team members. Oct 12th will be the 25th anniversary of its start. Sheila wants past members to come out to the WHS football game to reunite and possibly do the fight song on the field. Let Julie know who all can make it out. No inappropriate dancing! We are LADIES!
I am not one of those people who thinks high school was the best time of my life. I was a drama nerd and a misfit and served a short stints in band, in the color guard and on the drill team.
When I read that post on facebook, my immediate thought was hell no. I haven't seen these people in 15 years and most of the memories I have had to do with me being grounded whether it be by my parents or by the school. Then the comments started rolling in and I started remembering the good times. Also, the times that were not good at the time, but since the statute of limitations has passed, have become amusing.
I was a horrible person to Sheila, the Director. I honestly feel terrible about it now. She wanted so badly for all of us to be ladies and shake the typical whore core connotation that goes along with dance teams. She picked songs for us to dance to like the Flintstones theme and Smoke on the Water, but we got to pick our stretching music which was, almost always something by the Beastie Boys or radio edits of NWA. Of course, the stretching would sometimes turn into a competition for who could get their ass to pop the most or who could stick their boobs out the farthest. Ms. Shiela would shake her fingers ferociously and threaten demerits and we would be like, "What?? WE'RE STRETCHING! GOD!" Eye roll.
"what? we are stretching our eyes. god...."
During practice, me and a few of my pastiest friends would hang out in the back of the gym and learn how to dirty dance from this black girl named Patricia. She taught us how to do The Granny (one hand on hip, one hand on knee, hump air violently) and the The Dog (both hands on bleacher or bumper or ground if necessary, bend knees, hump air violently). Sheila busted me doing the dog in the stands during one of our home games and I got grounded for the next two games which was so lame. However, I could not shake the feeling of pride and street cred oozing from my pores as the black girl on the drill team screamed, "Go white girl!" It was worth it.
During Friday night football games, we got third quarter off and had to be back promptly for fourth. I was habitually late either from smoking cigarettes, stuffing my face with nachos or stuffing my face with some loser (retrospectively) in the parking lot. I kept my hymen til college and was a professional tease, but I REALLY liked kissing. One time I came back late, my french braid amess and my giant red bow askew, holding the hand of some undesireable and Ms. Sheila pulled me to the side and said we were not allowed to hold hands with boys while in uniform. This meant no kissing! This meant no sneaking out to the parking lot to hop on some dudes tailgate and swig from his bottle of Goldschlager while he unsuccessfully tried to finger me through my orange-hued dance tights! She was single-handedly ruining my life! This was BULLSHIT! So I quit my senior year.
Now that I am older, I am remembering this with fondness instead of that crawl-under-a-rock feeling I had about it once I graduated and realized what a little slut bag hellion I was. So now I think I am going to go to that game on Friday night. Sheila will probably shit her pants as soon as she sees my face, but I will only do the dog when her back is to me. If I have learned one thing over all these years, it is how not to get caught. I'm looking forward to meeting up with these girls I had shennanigans with and seeing what kind of women they've become. And hopefully, Ryan will turn down his tailgate for me!!
