Local Music Festival

This past weekend was my neighborhood's annual music festival. I love it because it establishes a great sense of community as the main street is closed down and I get to sample local bands. Except that this year, I barely listened to any music, which I feel bad about, but I had other priorities, apparently. Instead, I got: a) drunk b) exercise c) jock itch.

Since I'm just a brief walk away, I hosted a barbeque before the event and an unexpected twenty people showed, putting us off to a late start. Despite power walking the mile+ to our friend's band's show (his stage was the furthest away possible), I didn't arrive literally until the closing notes of his last song. Of course, I acted as though I had been there for much more time when I spoke to him briefly, but I can honestly say those ending seconds were legitimately a "good job." As Allison arrived at the stage, she beelined for the bathroom out of desperation, then accidentally peed on the floor.

The night had barely started.

The next band was this new age thing with a harp. Even though we all agreed they were good, the vibe was for stoners rather than drunkees. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been a problem for some of my friends who had just got caught smoking weed in an alley by teenagers. Regardless, the decision was to leave for a different atmosphere.

We didn't even make it to the next stage before getting derailed at the local restaurant. People wanted beer and a bathroom. The bathrooms both had "out of order" signs, which I think were faked to avoid having thousands of people use them throughout the night, and the line for drinks was at least half an hour long. Allison and I, who you can hardly call exercisers, decide we will walk the mile or so back to my house to pick up alcohol for everyone.

We were desperately thirsty and desperately had to pee. The more we had to pee, the more we just decided that the solution to our problem was moving faster. When we finally arrived at my house, despite practically leaking from my genitals, I did the gentlemanly thing and allowed Allison to pee first (in part because of her, uh, accidentally earlier.) You know how you get to a point when you are THIS close to a toilet that you mentally let yourself go a little bit and you have to pee harder than ever before. I had to bounce up and down for a full minute before the bathroom was available in order to avoid wetting myself.

Allison dumped out the entire contents of her purse to make maximum room for beer, while I lined my pockets with bottles of rum and coke. Before we left, I applied jock itch medicine to my groin after having worked up a scratchy sweat from walking so intensely. Unfortunately, this medicine caused my testicles to stink on our walk back to everyone, but at least we had beers we could covertly drink to soothe the pain. Before encountering police, we ditched the cans where a homeless person would be appreciative to find them (they were gone the next day!) but if I could do it over again, I'd have left him a full one, too, for his trouble.

When we finally got back, you've never seen a group of people so thirsty. As it turns out, all of the alcohol we could smuggle in only lasted about twenty minutes with our group. And it made everyone have to pee again. Unable to wait the hour in line it would take to access a real bathroom, Sarah, Ted, and I crept into a nearby yard to conduct our business. Sarah is a new friend, so what better way to bond than to simultaneously urinate a few feet a part while nervously scanning for angry property owners?



I saw a little bit of the Submarines, the one band I was really excited to see, but was sort of underwhelmed. And then most people asked to go back and hang out at my house instead, which required a lot more walking - and irritating my jock itch - but whatever. It was a lot of fun. But next year, I'm going to listen to a lot more of the music. Or, more likely, do it exactly the same way again.