Friday my friend from camp called to say that Doodle was flying in that night and would I like to go to the airport to pick her up? Doodle and I are two of the five "originals" of camp; we were part of the staff of five years ago that has grown into what camp is today. If camp were the US, we'd be the Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin of the bunch. So somehow (through no fault of our own) we've developed a sort of legend status. I know, laugh it up. Doodle was to arrive at 9pm, and thus at 8 I stopped the work I was doing on my dresser (another story entirely) and got ready to go to Dulles. My friend called: flight delayed til 9:30. Called again, 10:30. Ok, 11. A tad frustrating but understandable. So my friend (who, if you haven't noticed, has remained nameless) decided in the interim to head to Winchester to go out for drinks with some friends. Before going to the airport in the opposite direction. I questioned it as well. So when she finally called me she had left the restaurant late and had two young guys in tow. I pointed out that with Doodle this would be five people in her car, but she didn't seem to notice. So my friend and these two guys show up at my house at 11 and I open the car door to find these two guys (who, incidentally, are barely 18) with open beers in the car. They had brought a six pack for the 40 minute ride to my house were down to one full can. I will not, in any circumstance, ride around with underage people with open containers. Like that adds a whole new dimension to idiocy. So I told them to pour 'em out. They balked. I affirmed. They muttered, grunted and poured. My legend status shrank considerably. I had to take their five empty cans into my house so that they wouldn't be rolling around the back of my friends car. I was dumbfounded. Here we were, in the county with the most cops per capita in the state, in a state with some of the strictest drunk driving and open container laws in the country and these guys told me I just needed to relax and chill. I was too much of a "goody-goody". It is rather strange to go from the most liberal of one group of friends to the most conservative of another.
They didn't speak to me the rest of the ride to the airport. We got Doodle, she wondered why my friend had the two drunk, underage guys with her as well and validated my stance. When I had to crawl into the back seat to ride between the two fun boys, I had to move the leather pouch of pot and a bowl so I could buckle my seat belt.
At first I wondered if I was just getting too old for that sort of thing, but then I realized that I don't think I was ever ok with any of that. My sense of good ideas and bad ideas has usually governed me away from situations like that. Then I looked at my friend and wondered how she was ok with any of it when I was so uncomfortable.
Doodle and I caught up on jobs, families, pets, rent/morgages and car payments. I realized that the other three could not contribute to the conversation and I got self-conscious, right around the time Doodle and I were discussing our Medical and Dental plans. I could tell the guys were scrutinizing these two legends who work basic 9-5 jobs when Doodle piped up and said, "I wonder which is better: working a steady job that pays for time off to do the activities we love, or doing the activities we love for a living and then being too burned out to do them in the spare time? I think it's a draw." We don't live in the tent village anymore, we don't live by the seat of our pants, we have roots and relationships and investments and payments and insurance. I'm not saying we are better, we are just older and I think it was a sort of wake up call for both sides. The Lost Boys grow up at some point.
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