Since I Left High School

After my last post, a friend of mine called me to inform me that she too had decorated her Christmas tree in purple and gold. This being before I actually began the decorating, I decided to change it up.

My tree now stands eight feet tall with green and silver decorations. I also sprayed some "snow" on a few of its branches, in order to give it the up-North-in-the-snow look I was going for.

Now for it to give off that delightful scent I've longed to smell.

On another note, and in regards to the title of this post, my high school friend and I plan to go down memory lane sometime this week to visit some of our favourite high school teachers. From what I've been told, with the graduation of the class of 2008 and 2009, my school has managed to transform itself into something like an inner city school. Apparently the student population is made up of ill-mannered and violent youth who care as much about their education as they do about the teachers and staff seeing their boxers and ass while they walk through the school hallways.

The fact that it is now a D school and that my old Spanish teacher has complained that some of the students cannot even read in English is all the evidence I need.

With that said, after church this morning I stayed up long enough to eat my mother's famous lasagna and then went back to sleep. During that time, my subconscious thoughts manifested themselves into a scary and realistic dream. It was one of those dreams after which I woke up and had to praise God that it was not real.

Here goes.

As planned a friend and I went back to my high school to visit our teachers - only the friend in the dream is not the same friend with whom I intend on going. In fact, she is one of my best friends from Jamaica. Nonetheless, the dream began with the end of our visit, or so we thought.

By the time I had finished talking with the two teachers I love dearly, the school bell rang. This meant that we were instantly surrounded by the same high school youth I was just talking about.

On the way to the parking lot I looked over and saw an old friend that I had not seen or spoken to since I graduated, so I walked over to say hi. Standing there next to him was a guy I am more than embarrassed to be dreaming about; we call him Eye Candie and he was my first "love" for half of my high school career.

In that awkward moment, he smiled at me and gestured for a hug. After we hugged, he started bragging about his new haircut (back in my days he had braids, which he had cut off after I asked him to, but clearly grew them back. [Indian hair grows too quickly.]) and saying "I cleaned it up" to which I responded "yeah, very nice." After that short conversation I walked away.

As my friend and I approached the parking lot, we saw a sexy new Chevy Camaro parallel parked right in front of where we were standing. (During half of the dream the car was white with 2 green stripes down the middle, and throughout the other half it was a chili red.) In true bestie fashion, we both decided to take pictures of and with the car. In true her fashion, she was oblivious to the fact that the bag on her back managed to scrape off a thick line of paint that extended from the top left of the hood to the top corner of the driver side door.

We both began to panic. She immediately called her brother (who in real life is not her brother at all, but her first boyfriend.) After the call we both decided to head back to the school and see if we could find the owner to apologise and come up with a plan. My welcome back greeting was by Eye Candie's girlfriend - the chick who succeeded me - as she came over angrily and shoved me by my left shoulder saying "I heard you're back to try and steal my man." To his I responded by saying to myself, "did she really just touch me?" and proceeded to end all argument and just hit her.

The fight lasted all of 2 minutes until gunshots began to rain in the school. Bullets flew all over the place from unknown shooters in unknown places. Everyone quickly reacted by running, as people were being taken down by the bullets all around. The dream suddenly became very real, and my bestie had all but disappeared. Apparently at some point during the fight she had decided to go back to the parking lot and leave a post it with her name, phone number, and an "I'm sorry" on the Camaro.

I realised then that I was alone. After successfully running away from the concentration of gunshots, I suddenly ended up inside my car, inside my garage. I found myself, key in hand, still worried. My heart was pounding, my breaths were short, and I was not safe inside my own garage. Before I could turn the car on and proceed to reverse onto the driveway, a charcoal gray Z35 with neon lights pulled up in preparation to reverse into my garage and park next to me.

It took the driver 2 tries to do it right, which gave me enough time to notice that he and the passenger were dressed in all black with skully caps and bullet proof vests, and to hide underneath my staring wheel. I had about a 2 second grace period where I needed to successfully reverse out of my garage and speed off without being caught, seen, heard, or followed.

And then I woke up.