by Tiger Lilly
A little while ago I got to go out on what will probably be the closest thing to a date that I will ever get. (Or so says my best friend.) I know, you want details…
Two years ago I met a boy named Brent at one of our church league softball games. I saw him a few more times during the summer, and at the end of the softball season, we traded phone numbers and addresses. We proceeded to keep in touch by writing letters (he doesn’t have internet at his house, otherwise we’d probably be exchanging emails). I would see him every now and then when he came to drop off letters at my house (he also doesn’t have stamps). He came over a couple of times and watched movies at our house (after clearing the movies with his Dad) and once I went over to his house to sword fight, a common interest we have. He has these swords, called L.A.R.P. (Live-Action Role Playing) Swords, and we used those. They are padded poles covered in duct tape, so it doesn’t hurt (much) if you get hit by them.
Then my sister organized some dancing lessons a few weeks ago and I invited him to come along, and he surprisingly enjoyed it. Then he invited me to go to this youth thing at his church called “Net”. It was a concert/mass for teens, and it goes from October to the first weekend in May.
So I asked my parents, and they (surprisingly enough) agreed. Well, my dad just made this growling noise that sounded affirmative. 4:30 Saturday afternoon rolls around. Brent, his dad, and his sister come pick me up, and my Dad (of course) gives Mr. Howard the run-down of his wishes for proper supervision. Mr. Howard assures Dad that there will be plenty of people around. We leave, and go pick up one of their friends, whose name is Tom.
We get to Net at around 5, an hour before it starts (they like to get there early to get good seats). At 5:30 one of Brent’s friends shows up (his name is John Paul. Hmmm, sounds like Ron Paul!). We listen to the band tuning up (the band is called Sonar). Then Net finally starts. There’re lots of songs, some by David Crowder, who I like to listen to. Then the preacher comes out (he’s really funny), and announces that there will be Communion. Now I’m thinking, ‘Carp’, because Catholics have closed Communion. So I asked Brent if I could just stay in my seat instead of going up with my arms crossed against my chest, signifying that I’m not Catholic. He told me to come up anyway. So I’m standing there, my arms crossed, thinking, “Yargh, no one else is doing this!!!” I barely stop long enough for one of the preachers to do his thing before following Brent back to the seats. As soon as we sit back down, he says, “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I just half-smiled, not really agreeing or disagreeing.
After Communion, there were more songs, and then there was a 20 minute break. There were large tubs of snack and drinks, and Brent said that we basically had 20 minutes to grab all the food we wanted. There were Oreos, Rice Krispies, M&Ms, little bags of cookies, all sorts of junk food. The drinks were Capri Sun coolers.
Next was the message, called “The Amazing Race”. It was on the race of life, and — what do you know — the preacher was an athlete who had gone through tons of marathons and Iron Mans (Iron Men?). One of the marathons was even in Alaska. He knew what it was like to have to train for months ahead of time for a race. He said that he had cut out every type of junk food and refined sugars from his diet (I looked guiltily down at the packet of Oreos I had liberated from the food basket). He translated that into things like too much television. The preacher was very funny, and had a lot of one-liners. Brent said that the preacher had been on some t.v. show, but he couldn’t remember which one.
After the message, there was this thing called “Adoration”. During Adoration, they brought out some golden sunburst thing, and everybody was kneeling. Now, I don’t want to offend any Catholics out there who are reading this blog, and this is entirely my point of view (and maybe a little bit of my mother’s POV), but, yo, the idols and graven images thing kind of creeps me out. So here I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ while Sonar is playing a few songs. Thankfully, it didn’t last too long, and after Adoration there were a couple of pretty lively songs. Net ended when the songs were over. As we made our way out the door, Brent and I lost his dad somewhere along the line (I think he got pulled into a talking trap). Brent and I waited by the truck, kind of high on energy. So we decided to…………………………………………………………………………run around the parking lot! (Scared you, didn’t I?) It burned off a lot of that energy, but there’s a certain kind of energy that just doesn’t go away when you’re outside on a crisp spring night. Then Brent’s dad made his way back to the car with Tom. From there we went to Perkins. At 10:45! I didn’t get home until close to 12! :^P
Ciao for now!
