One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others.

I made crappy time to Canal Fulton, where the concert was, because of an accident in Columbus. The traffic was so bad I came around an exit ramp that emptied onto 77 East and thought, "Holy crap! Did I drive to LA?" I was supposed to meet Jessi at 10 but didn’t pull into the parking lot until 10:20. Jessi had no cell phone. I called Donna. "What if she’s not there?" I asked.
"Don’t worry," she assured me. "She’ll be there."

I was wearing baggy cargo shorts that I’ll admit are hip-huggers, just because they’re so big. They come down to my knees. (They’re the ones I’m wearing in the fishing picture.) I had pink underoo briefs and a white tank top with a flamed Utility Board Shop logo on it, and a pink bikini top underneath, and sneakers with socks. I did not, repeat, DID NOT, look like a hussy. If anything, I looked like a skater chick. Still, as soon as I got out of the car, I got disparaging looks from all the moms - maybe because the top elastic of my underwear was visible over my shorts? I wanted to be like, "Uh, lady, let me direct your attention over to your daughter, who looks to be about 15 and is wearing a tight, strappy tank top that shows her midriff with a pair of had-to-melt-herself-in-a-pot-and-pour-herself-into-them daisy dukes. Why don’t you worry about that for awhile instead of shooting me those glares, ‘kay?" Granted, I was snappy. I was tired and extraordinarily hot and a bit nervous at what was in store for me inside the gates. But it did seem a bit unfair to me.

At the ticket booth, I asked the women if I had to be saved to attend. "Oh, no!" they said in unison. "But if you want to be, we can do that!"
"Hey, thanks!" I said, unsure if that would be happening or not.
"Have fun!" they called after me.
"Thanks, I will!" I actually meant it. I was excited to see Jessi and determined to have a good time, even if I felt out of place.

I walked in and found The Fish Booth, a Christian radio station tent. "So that’s what she meant!" I thought, as I looked around and noticed that Jessi was nowhere to be found. "This is bad..."
Jessi didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t have a clue where to look for her. Prime shady hang-out space around the Fish Booth was being fast taken up by families (complete with booty-short-sporting pubescent girls, of course) and it was becoming clear that a baggy-cargo-shorts girl by herself would be tolerated - because it’s the Christian thing to do - but not exactly welcome. My heart started to beat faster under the hot sun as I called Max. "Max, I feel like I’m in a sick version of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ called ‘Spot The Pagan!’."
"Just calm down, okay? You’ll find her."
"I want to find the beer tent! I want a cold beer and a cigarette."
"Jess, you don’t smoke."
"I know!!! That’s how out of place I feel! I suddenly have this urge to do something really bad!"
"Do they have a beer tent there?"
"Max, what do you think?"
"Yeah... I guess that wouldn’t make much sense. You should have brought a flask."
"Seriously."

After Max let me yell a string of obscenities into the phone just to get them out of my system, I felt much better, although still out of place. All around me were tents and food stands. To my left, down a dirt path, was a huge lake with a waterslide going into it. I had seen beach volleyball nets set up on my way in. The whole set-up was pretty elaborate. The funniest thing to me was watching a group of ridiculously insane people who were sitting right in front of the main stage, baking in the sun. It was like they were camping out for tickets to a concert they were already at. It was 10 o’clock in the morning and already 85 degrees. "What fools!" I thought as I sat in the shade.

I stood around the Fish Booth, trying to look like I belonged, for about 20 minutes until finally, FINALLY, I saw Jessi’s cute little head bounding up the hill from the main stage. I ran down to meet her and we shared one of those hugs you give people when you’re both hot and sweaty, the kind where you take great pains not to actually touch the other person with anything other than your fingertips. "We’re saving our places down in the pit!" she announced gleefully.
"Wha??" I asked as I lifted my head and saw the group of ridiculously insane people all waving to me. "Oh, Jesus Christ!" I thought as I followed her down into the Heatstroke Zone.

When we reached the fence that separated the stage from the pit, I recognized Nicole, her little friend from the cookout, peering out from under the brim of a trucker hat. She was surrounded by a co-ed string of other teens lined up along the ground against the black steel fence. Some had back packs and signs saying, "God (heart) Switchfoot" and "Relient K Rox My Sox!", written on the inside of cereal boxes and pizza boxes. Some were wearing pizza boxes on their head to escape the sun. As I surveyed the scene, I asked, "So, what’s the deal with saving the spots?"
Some kid said, "Oh, we’re gonna stay here until the bands start so we get the best view! We’re mainly here for Relient K!"
"Oh," I said. "What time do they start?"
"I think 8:30."
I looked at my phone. It was 10:45 AM. There was one thought and one thought alone going through my head: "Holy Mother Of God!"
However, I had come to the concert to hang out with Jessi and hang out with Jessi was what I was going to do, sun poisoning or not. "I’ll be damned if I wear a pizza box on my head, though," I thought.

So I squeezed my old ass into the line of pre-pubescent band-aids who would be my cohorts, my companions, my neighbors for The Rest Of The Freakin’ Day And Most Of The Night, the people whose sweat I would be covered in and whose bottled water I would drink from, and vice versa. One kid asked, incredulously, "How old are you?!"
"Twenty-four..." I mumbled, embarrassed to be the geezer.
His eyes grew wide. "Wow!" he cooed through his braces, amazed.
"Fuck you!" I shouted over everyone. It was hot. I was pissed at the prospect of stagnating in the sun all day. I had felt out of place before, but that sealed it.
Thank god for Jessi, who stuck up for me, shouting, "Jessica’s the youngest, coolest 24-year-old I know, okay?"
"Thanks, hon," I muttered. Looking at her pleadingly, I said, "Jessi, I may fight or kill someone by the end of the day. I kind of don’t belong here, y’know?"
"Ssshhhhh," she said. "Don’t worry! We’re all your friends! Come on, let’s take a walk to the campsite."

We thankfully left the sweatbox and made a pit stop in the merchandise tent. I wanted the same hat that Jessi had, a trucker hat that said "Free Hugs". We did two laps around the tent only to find out the hats were sold out. In the meantime, we passed the Rock For Life booth, which had to-scale models of fetuses laid out all over the table. For whatever reason, maybe that I’m pro-choice, the fact that they were meant to represent fetuses didn’t bother me. I said, "Awwwww, look at the little babies!"
"Oh, gosh, I don’t want to. I hate thinking about that stuff," she said.
"How do you feel about abortion?" I asked her.
"I don’t agree. It’s like, okay, you made your mistake and now you’re going to make an innocent life pay for it?"
"I understand, hon." I did. But it wasn’t the time or place to bring up the question of rape victims.

Since I couldn’t get a Free Hugs hat, I got a shirt that said "Jesus Loves Cali Girls!" Okay, I admit, I got it as a joke, kind of like one of those "Jesus Is My Homeboy" shirts, even though there were plenty of shirts and hats being sold in retaliation to that trend that said, "Jesus Is Not My Homeboy, He’s My Lord!" After buying it, we kept going into the blessed, blessed shade, past the lake and water slide. As we walked, I took a mental inventory of what I saw: two kids who looked to be about 19 or 20, holding hands and sporting matching rings and t-shirts that read, "I love my husband/I love my wife"; a teenage boy with long, curly hair and a shirt with a rainbow on it that said, "I’m in love - with a man!"; an older woman with cat-eye glasses and long, blonde hair dyed neon shades of pink, green, orange, and blue, selling ice cream out of a freezer; a sign that read, "Butter, Eggs, Milk, Hair Dye, Toilet Paper Available Behind Counter" in the grocery tent; a brown van covered in dust with, "Jesus is Lord!" written in the dirt.

We reached the camp and I met a few of Jessi’s friends from her youth group. Three days in the heat and dirt had seemed to have melted their manners a bit - one kid stared at me from behind smudged sunglasses and asked, "Who is that?!" - but I chalked it up to hot and bothered and acted politely. Jessi introduced me to everyone and then I tossed my stuff in the girl’s tent before walking back to the stage and it area. I grabbed a bottle of water, drank half, and then filled it again with water from the first aid tent. Jessi and I took our places back and stayed there all morning and afternoon. We played cards, sang songs, and got to know the kids around us.

It reached about 97 degrees at around noon and in desperation I took my tank top off. (Remember, I was wearing a bathing suit top.) About 15 minutes later my cell phone rang and I walked away from the group to answer it. While I was deep in conversation with Jojo and the gang, a woman approached and interrupted me, clearing her throat with an obnoxious, "Eh-eh-eh-ahem!" I looked at her, mid-sentence, as she snapped, "This is a shirted area, ma’am! You need to put a shirt on."
"Sure thing!" I struggled to say sweetly through clenched teeth, in danger of breaking my phone I was squeezing it so hard. "Must.... not.... smack....her....."

I tried to get over that annoyance by finding something funny. I had to laugh when Switchfoot took the stage for their soundcheck and were up there for about 20 minutes. None of the kids I was sitting with even noticed, because I was the only one facing the stage. Everyone else was seated up against the fence, "saving their seats". When the band was almost finished, the lead singer came down to the fence to shake hands with us kids waiting in the sun. A kid with a "I (heart) Switchfoot!" sign - the same kid that had been aghast at how old I was - looked at me and asked, "Who is that?"
"Uh, that would be the lead singer of Switchfoot, hon."
His eyes grew wide. "OH MY GOD!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and lunging towards the man.
I stood back, the lead singer’s eyes meeting mine with a smile as his arm was almost ripped off by the kid. "You just used the Lord’s name in vain!" I teased, giggling. He was too excited to notice. It was pretty cute.

Nicole got hot and one point and wanted to take a walk. I volunteered to go with her, all too eager for a change of scenery. "So.... are you, uh... saved?" I asked.
"No," she answered, smiling. "Not quite." I could sense a bit of mischeviousness about her that I didn’t get from Jessi.
"Nicole, can I tell you something? I’m gonna get kicked out, I can feel it. I like bad stuff. I like to drink alcohol. And sometimes I like to smoke cigarettes. And I like premarital sex. And I really want a beer."
She smiled knowingly. "I know. I can tell. You should have brought a one of those little bottle thingies."
"A flask?"
"Yeah," she said. "And don’t worry. I feel the same way sometimes."
"Thank god."

We walked past the dusty brown van and she scampered past me, Mission Impossible style, and scrawled the word "bong" on the window. I love Nicole.