April's Life Adventures

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Dorquad

Just before I started my sophomore year of High School, I had a sleep over with some friends. My sister had a friend and I also had one over. After a late night of giggles and makeovers, we awoke to an empty house, as my Mom had left for work early. As the four of us were eating breakfast, we noticed something strange. A roll of toilet paper came flying over the back fence and landed in a tree. We ran outside to see what was going on, when another roll came flying over the fence, followed by another, then another, and another. The war was on.

There was a new family in the house just behind us, who had four boys. Two of which were just younger than myself. They had also enjoyed a sleep over so there were four boys against four girls. We picked up the TP rolls and did what any sane teen-aged girls would do, we threw them back over the fence, into their much larger trees. The wind was on our side, so we were able to make an arch into the air that reached the very tip top of the tree. This game continued for about half an hour, the boys barely reaching our trees, and us retaliating in grand style, leaving beautiful trails of toilet paper so high up in the tree that they would have no hope of cleaning it up. This is when the real fun began.

The boys had planned this all out. The night before, they had shredded about 20 newspapers into teeny-tiny pieces and stuffed them into garbage sacks. They snuck up to the back fence and attempted to hoist them over. Our fence was 8 feet high, the wind as I stated before was on our side. As they attempted to dump the newspaper confetti onto our lawn, a miracle happened. The wind picked up just enough to blow all of the confetti onto the lawn of the boys! We won! The war was over, most of the toilet paper was in the high tree of the neighbors and the newspaper was blowing all over their lawn.

About this time, we returned into the house to finish our breakfast. We watched with delight as the boys attempted to clean up the mess before parents found out about their morning activities. I have to admit that I have a soft heart. Watching them and all of the work they had ahead of them made me feel terrible about the war we had participated in. I talked my sister and our friends into helping the boys clean up the mess.

When the clean up was completed, our girlfriends had gone home, it was down to the four boys, myself, and my sister. We did the only thing that felt natural at that point, we started a game of Volley Ball.

The neighbor boy caught my eye. Not in a romantic way at all, he was at least five inches shorter than I was and scrawny. Instead of relying on looks, he was really fun, he had a great sense of humor, and was actually insanely kind. I gave him the nick name of Dorquad. It started with Dork, then Dork-wad, and the final version of Dorquad lasted all through our high school years. He was my best friend who looked out for me and protected me from the brunt of the teasing that had plagued me for years. I was the only person on the planet allowed to use his nickname.

We attended dances together, we went on dates together (mostly when neither of us had a real date), I gave him rides to school an extra hour early so he could attend Jazz Band. We hung out each and every afternoon as we actually did complete our homework. He let me use his computer to write essays (I didn't have one). Other friends would join our group, and eventually leave it, but Dorkquad and I were always there.

As I left for college, we obviously drifted apart. We would see each other during the summer months, but it was never quite so magical as those three years of high school. He now lives a life very different from my own. He is not married, no kids, never went to college. I do however wonder from time to time how my friend Dorkquad is doing. I hope he is well, for he is the only reason why I survived High School.

Posted by April_Mommy :: 7:47 AM :: 5 comments