Minty Fresh

I told this story to fett the other day. Hadn't thought of it in years, and now I can't resist sharing it with the rest of you [poor sumbitches].

I'd guess this all took place around the time I was sixteen. I was seeing this girl Courtney, and for the first time, "seeing this girl" actually meant going out on dates instead of that lame "going together" thing kids do at lunch before they can drive.

It was not going well, due largely to my being painfully fucking shy (not to mention a complete dork).

(And I am so fucking not Sheldon, no matter what Blue and my wife say.)

One of my best friends decided to have a little fun with me, so for my birthday, he got me a box of mint-scented condoms. Partly, I guess at that age, it's just exciting to buy condoms. You're barely past the stage where you giggle every time they're mentioned. Mostly, I think, it was to make fun of me, since, being the giant lump of low self esteem you see before you e'en unto this day... they couldn't have been more useless to me.

Now, far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth. I decided to get some mileage out of the present anyway. We had another friend, Amy. Amy was smart and funny and crass and vulgar... and basically awesome. I decided it was time to get her involved in the caper.

The three of us were all marching band nerds, so I snuck into the instrument room and opened Amy's trumpet case looking for her flip book... basically, a little flip folder that could be attached to a musical instrument, and which contained all the music we played in the stands during the football games, plus the national anthem and the school's alma mater, which we had to play at the beginning of every home football game.

I popped the flip folder out, flipped through until I found what I was looking for, and booyah... opened up one of the condoms and stretched it across the Star Spangled Banner. Then I packed the folder back up nice and neat to hide my handiwork and went about my business.

That Friday was a home game, so we had to go do all the pregame stuff. We all played trumpet, so it was gong to be easy to see the results. And of course I'd told all my friends what I'd done, so there was a nice big crowd of trumpet players gathered around Amy, jockeying for prime hilarity-viewing real estate, snickering, and generally failing to hide the fact that something was up.

I... haven't really matured much over the years.

We played the school's alma mater.

Then we all flipped to the Star Spangled Banner... and SPLUT. There's the condom across Amy's.

Right there in the end zone, she fishes the condom out of her folder, inflates it, and goes, "Mmm... mint flavored, too!"

The entire trumpet line pretty much dissolved into laughter at that point. Hell, we all damn near fell down right there on the field. So there was no melody at all for the national anthem.

Now, I grew up in a football town. The whole town shuts down at 4pm on football Fridays. So everyone was there.

The band director was livid.

I don't remember what the punishment was, but it was totally worth it.