I figure that I should probably get caught up on last weekend before we head out for another road trip on Friday. State semi-finals! Yee-hawwwwwwwyaaaawn...

So rewind to the weekend from Hell. Remember? No? Well, I'll set the mood. Those of you just joining us don't need to review previous posts, just read the following recap.

1. Lots of stress...unplanned football game on top of STATE MARCHING BAND COMPETITION.
2. Incompetent bus drivers who manage to get lost at least once every time they get behind the wheel.
3. Eating every meal at a different mall...every godforsaken day.
4. Driving past the exit for DISNEY WORLD to go stay in Clearwater.
5. Staying in a crackhouse/whorehouse in Clearwater for two nights, and the few precious hours I slept were spent in a couch bed.

Yeah, that about sums it up. Crap, crap, crap, double crap, and more crap on top. So, that about sums up Friday and Saturday. I think the last blog I made that weekend was before I went to bed around 11:30 Saturday. I'll pick up there.

I slept for about 2 hours. Around 1:30 all hell breaks loose around our room. It sounds like someone is being body slammed repeatedly in the room next door, and there is quite possibly a circus parade going down the hall. Our room phone rang repeatedly, with nobody on the line when we pick it up. People knocking and yelling to let them in as they forgot their key...one guy actually tried to argue that *I* was in the wrong room. WTF?! I slept very, very sporadically from 1:30 until about 3:30.

At that point, the room phone rings again, but this time it's Stephanie - our woodwind teacher. She says that she had to have one of the boys' rooms moved and that they were having trouble - come down to room 210. My first thought was that the boys had done something stupid and were going to be in a world of shit the following morning...I grumbled as I crawled out of my couch and thankfully had the foresight to put on a bra. I was wearing my my new pink Peace Frog pajama shirt and purple PJ pants. I slipped on my Crocs (the floors were just not what I would wander around on barefoot, thanks) and headed down the hall. I fully expected to see elephants and monkeys and (evil) clowns and such when I opened my door. The hallway was empty.

I knocked on 210's door, and hear the boys whispering frantically, then hear all the locks and such disengaging. They GRABBED me, and pulled me in the room, slamming the door and locking it in record time...I half expected them to start shoving furniture in front of it, Scooby Doo style. "Hurry, Mrs. Smith! Get in here where it's safe!!" Wha?! Here's a condensed version of their story:

They started out in the room they stayed in the night before. They were only there a few hours Friday night, and of course didn't actually SLEEP. Saturday they were all worn out, so they pulled the covers down to go to bed and found (brace yourself) a used condom in the sheets. I’ll give you a moment to recover….. They called Stephanie, who called the front desk. They moved the boys to the room on the 2nd Floor (aka "Pot Central," "Circus Maximus" or "Git yer whores here!"....MY floor). Stephanie goes to the desk, gets their new keys, and returns to the condom room. They load up and all take the elevator to the 2nd floor. A couple of the resident potheads get on board and thus begins the most bizarre few moments of any band trip I have ever been involved in. The boys are S, D (the young man that ate dinner with the grown-ups earlier that night), K, and J. One of the potheads offers his opinion that D "needs some weed," and he can come on over to room 209 - they have weed, a couple 6 packs, and a couple hookers. In one breath, these four boys were solicited for sex, drugs, and alcohol. I mean, the 3 big no-nos for any band trip all in one breath. Stephanie declines their polite offer, and is much chagrined to see them all getting off on the same floor. The potheads are right across the hall, so they now know which room the boys are now in. Stephanie makes sure this room has no condoms, and gets them settled in. She's getting ready to leave and there's a knock at the door - it's the friendly neighborhood potheads, wondering when the boys are coming over. That's when Stephanie called me.

So...by the time I get there, they boys have worked themselves into quite a state. Everyone's talking at once. So much louder than necessary. Interestingly enough, this is the point that I realize that I really, REALLY need to brush my teeth. I don't know what brought on that realization, but the whole time I was doing damage control there, I was wondering if I'd slept those two hours with my socks in my mouth or something. Blah! Anyway, back to the crisis. In the time I took to put on a bra and get my shoes, the boys had found a roach (and not the bug variety) and other drug paraphernalia in their desk drawer. Ye gods...so I get them calmed down and call Mary - the head chaperone. She needs to know that the boys have been moved, and I wanted to see what she wanted us to do next. She is flabbergasted by the story...she's going to call the desk to get them moved again, and asks me to call her right back. Satisfied that I'd done everything I could possibly do for that moment, I tell the boys to get their stuff together again - we were going to another room. Oh, and does anyone have any mouthwash? No? Ok, I'll be right back. NO, you're not coming to my room! Stay here and lock me out - I'll be right back! ...Ok...

I returned momentarily, feeling much better about my mouth situation. The boys' situation still sucked, but at least I wasn't breathing toxic fumes on everyone around me. I called Mary back and was told to bring the boys down to the desk. The only room they had left was a double bed, but as D said, "That's ok Mrs. Smith, we aren't sleeping any more tonight anyway." So we head downstairs, unaccosted by the idiots across the hall. D asks if I want him to walk with me - I told him that if anyone – anyone wanted to mess with me that night it would be the last thing they would remember doing for a very long time. About 5 hours of sleep since Thursday? I dare you to mess with me. Hey, at least I brushed my teeth.

We get them down to their new, drug-free room (they checked the covers, the desk, and all the dresser drawers). We got them settled down again, and head back to the front desk...this is around 4:30. Mary calls for a cop - she has a lot to say about this experience and wants to be very thorough once we get back home. Stephanie and I walk the floors and make sure everyone is still taped in while she waits for the cops to show, and as soon as we step off the elevator on the now-infamous 2nd floor, there's a welcoming party of potheads. Stephanie stepped back on the elevator, but I was done. Overdone, even.

I stepped off and lifted my right hand to point, and they started backing away.
"You all need to turn around and go back to your rooms. Now."
"Why? What's wrong?" (still backing away)
"I've listened to your crap in the hall all night long and I'm sick of it. Go back to your rooms and sleep this crap off."
"Hey, we're just minding our own business-" (did I mention I was done?)
"No, you're not. I don't care what you're doing - go to your rooms. Now."
"Hey, we're just-" (still backing away)
"GO. TO. YOUR. ROOM."
They turned left toward their room and I turned right toward mine - I heard them stop at some point and they started to say something, and I spun around and advanced on them again, in full teacher mode. "Go to your room. Now. I don't want to hear anything you have to say. I want you to hear this, though. If I even think that I see you talking to another one of my kids, I will call the cops. And just so you know, we brought one with us so I won’t have to wait for the local cops to get here. He can be standing here next to me in about 2 minutes. Do NOT make me call and wake him up this morning."
I turned around dramatically and stalked down the hall. DONE!! I didn't see them again that night.

All the rooms were fine - some of the band dads had gone behind us and double-taped their daughters' rooms, and a few had done the same to their daughters' boyfriends' rooms. Heh. Little did we know that OUR kids would not be the problem... So the floor check is done, and Stephanie and I meander down to the lobby again. I called Resa at this point (this Vonage thing is AMAZING!) and she asks, "Isn't it 4:30AM? What are you doing up now?" “Waiting for the cops to show up” "Ah." I love my sister. :) So the cop shows up and helps as much as he can - I mean, he can't arrest someone for offering a minor entrance to a party. Basically he says, "Well, we come here for drugs a lot, ma'am." Nice. Really nice. Stephanie and I left it to Mary at this point, and head back to our rooms. I crawled into my couch and managed to sleep for about an hour before it's time to get up and get the kids ready to go. ...sigh...

I was pretty sure by this point that Mary did NOT go back to bed. She and I were driving the van, so I knew I was probably going to have to drive at some point. I drove from Ocala to P'cola, and didn't get to sleep in the van...Mary was having a hard time staying awake herself. As icing on the mud pie that the weekend had become, we're ready to leave Sunday morning, and one of the bus drivers realizes he has to turn the bus around. He pulls out of the parking lot and disappeared for 20 minutes. 20 minutes...he was just supposed to drive around the block to pull in another direction. I can only assume that he got lost...it certainly goes with the theme.

We pulled out behind the buses (once everyone got loaded and such), and realized that we needed to get gas. The buses weren't stopping until Ocala, so we told them we'd catch up. We turn off and pull into a gas station...I lifted my weary eyeballs and saw a Starbucks across the street. I saw a beam of sunlight strike the roof and heard a heavenly choir. Mary must have heard it too, because she looked up and saw it at the same time. We gassed up, and then hit the Starubucks drivethru. Aaahhhh....then we hit up a McDonalds. MMMmmmmmm. This is the point that we realize all the good stuff this weekends managed to happen when we LEFT the buses. Hmmmmm....

We drive along eating our McDonalds and drinking our Starbucks and have a nice, uneventful ride. We catch up to the buses at an enormous truck stop, and ended up leaving after the buses did. This is when the other van realized that pizza does NOT make for good road food. :) So we ended up not tailing the buses again, but had a very nice ride. We stopped at a rest stop and I took over the drive. There was a very funny moment in which we made fun of clarinet players (which I can do as I AM one), and then it was all me. The kids fell asleep in the back of the van, and then Mary went out, and it was all me. La la laaa.

We got back to the school about 10 minutes after the buses did. TJ picked me up, and I didn't even go in the Bandroom...I just took my stuff out of the van and put it in my car, and left. Run away! There was more, but it's either been repressed as too psychologically damaging or just forgotten for now. Please bear all this in mind when you hear my lack of enthusiasm for another road trip this weekend. I mean, I love spending time with the kids...and really NONE of the drama from this weekend was of their doing. ...sigh... We'll be calling local sheriff’s offices before we overnight anywhere again. "How many times have you been to the ______ motel?" Meh.