My RAVE experience

So last Friday I posted a funny story of my life, and I thought it might be fun to make it a weekly thing.  So here goes.

Let's step back in time to March 1997.  Southside Irish Parade weekend (for those of you who aren't familiar with Chicago, the SSI Parade was one of the best weekends in our city, till the bastards cancelled it this year).  The Parade is on Sunday, so we're talking Saturday night.

My three best friends -- they called us the Four Headed Beast -- decided they wanted to go to a rave.  I did not have any desire to go.  Just not my scene, so I opted to go see a movie with a good friend.  Off my friends went to the rave.

Now here's where it's important to tell you that I had my own phone line.  This was both awesome and terrible, because it meant people knew they could call me pretty much WHENEVER because the phone would only ring in MY room.  Therefore, no risk of parental units answering.  Also, in 1997. only adults and important people had cell phones.  We had pagers.  We were so cool.

So I'm peacefully sleeping when my phone rings.  I look at the clock and it's 6:12 a.m.  I look at the Caller ID and it's a payphone.  Knowing it's one of my three friends, I answer.

"Hello?"

"Hey Lis!  Whatcha doin'? (It's the other Lisa -- I quickly discover why neither Rita or Kristine made the call - because they were afraid I'd kill them).

"Um, it's 6 in the morning.  I'm sleeping."

"Oh.  Well, um, we, were sort of, um, wondering, if you could, um, pick us up?"

"Pick you up?  What happened?  Where's Kristine's car?"

"Well, we came out of the rave and three of her tires were slashed."

At this point, I shoot up in bed so fast, I got dizzy and almost fell out of bed.

"WHAT?? HER TIRES WERE SLASHED??? ARE YOU KIDDING?"

"No, and we tried to jack up the car to put on the spare, but we put the jack on wrong and we broke something."

Okay.  Here's why I was the mom of our group.

First of all, WHAT GOOD IS IT TO CHANGE ONE TIRE WHEN YOU HAVE THREE SLASHED TIRES.

Second of all, WHY WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO DO THIS WHEN NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING, AND IT'S 4 A.M.

"We borrowed a guy in a Cadillac's cell phone to call a tow truck but we couldn't find any numbers."

"Okay.  I'm coming.  Where are you?"

Silence.

"Um, where are you???"

"1650 E. 87th Street."

"Wait.  did you just say EAST 87th Street?"

Sidenote:  The SOUTHEAST side of Chicago is NOT a good neighborhood.  This is where I will run a redlight without giving it a second thought.  Needless to say, I don't drive on the SOUTHEAST side of Chicago.

"Yeah, that's where the rave was."

Now I'm pissed.  "I'm leaving.  You better be ready to get in the car when I get there."

I get there, and the three of them are sitting in Kristine's car.  I pull up and they get in, smiling.  I am not smiling.

"Thank you!  We love you!"

Continuous glaring.

We drive back to my house.  I sit Kristine down with the yellow pages and tell her to find a tow truck.  I go to Dunkin Donuts and get coffee and donuts because I am THAT good of a friend, and I am the mom.

We drive back to EAST 87th street to meet the tow truck guy.  Tow truck guy tows the car back to my house (where Kristine was "spending the night" according to her parents") and the plan is to say the tires got slashed overnight while it was parked on my block.

So we've now paid for one tow truck.  Kristine's parents pay for the second tow truck to come and get the tires fixed. 

They did anything I asked for the next month.

And Kristine's parents still don't know what really happened.