Here's a story.
Four girls with no knowledge of the open road and no knowledge of mechanics. Four girls used to the luxury of showers and clean water. Four girls vastly unprepared for the dirt and hard work that lay ahead.
These four girls, though excited for the journey ahead, felt unsettled for a life without crowded city streets, hair straighteners, and, most importantly, delivery.com. (Where would one of the nameless girls get her pad thai from in Tennessee?!?)
But--it was a journey! A quest to visit the great untamed South and immerse themselves in the musical stylings of their favorite bands.
It was all about the music.
These girls faced criticism for their decision to partake upon this sure to be arduous venture, but they persisted. Even when the Most Beautiful One's appendix ruptured, they carried on. "Not to be defeated by an organ that weighs less than an ounce!" was their battle cry. So they soldiered on, dear readers, they soldiered on.
They left the great state of New Jersey on Wednesday night, bleary-eyed but excited. During the long 16 hour drive, three of the girls nearly formulated a plot to assassinate the Most Beautiful One for a host of reasons, but mostly for her insistence on singing "I Drove All Night To Get To 'Roo". Conflicts resolved, they crossed into Central Time and into Manchester County.
Upon their arrival to Bonnaroo's magnificent (re: wasteland) grounds, the girls hopped out of the car, excited and somewhat high off of the Red Bull and Six Hour Energy drinks that they had consumed to drive through the night.
But it wasn't before long that tragedy struck in the form of a tent too complicated to be assembled. One of the girls (we shall call her Friz. Please see the picture.) struck herself in the head with one of the poles.
The girls had only been there for five minutes, and one was already in tears!
But the girls persevered and relied on what they knew would help them in this situation: flirting and cold beer. So the girls moseyed on up to the boys next door from Texas and before you knew it- Poof! a tent was made.
They quickly made friends with these adorable men from Austin and soon enough, they were having a grand old time. Friz stopped crying about the bugs, Nervous Nance stopped worrying about the truck, Burned Out B just continued on being calm, and the Most Beautiful One...well, she just focused on having a good time.
Over the course of the next four days, the girls would face a litany of disasters. The mud pile that almost drowned them all; the rain that made their hair frizzy; the maze of tents that inevitably had all of them lost at one point (except for dear, logical Nance). The girls faced each of these problems with a smile and a wink (or a drink), always knowing that they could rely on each other to fix it.
And these girls, these city slickers, they triumphed! They even experienced all that Bonnaroo had to offer.
The Most Beautiful One took a percussion class and then showed off her newest talents to any bum with a drum. (Look out for her soon to be released compact disc entitled "Sounds I can make by drumming on my desk at work".)
They enjoyed the music to the fullest extent and even got used to the stench that permeated the grounds (a mix of B.O., poop, and hippie). They held each other up when they could no longer walk (very large grounds), tucked each other in when one had passed out (from all that time in the sun!), and even welcomed each others new "friends" to the tent! The pact that these girls had formed was awe-inspiring. When one girl (who shall remain nameless) fell into a Port-A-Potty, the other girl with her didn't even try to snap an embarrassing photo!
When the four days were up, the girls reluctantly began the trek north, where they realized that they had quickly assimilated into Southern culture--they were now huge fans of Sonic, Wal- Mart and hanging with barefoot babies at the gas station (just like Britney, y'all!).
These four girls had a splendid time and would do it again in a heartbeat--although next time, it may be in a hotel room.
Until then, we shall bid adieu to Bonnaroo!
But first, please allow this list to summarize some of the lessons that one or all of the girls learned while on their grand adventure:
1) Talking about Harry Potter and LOST while drinking is a swell time but not necessarily attractive to the girls' male counterparts. Quizzing each other on Ron Weasley's favorite Quidditch teams did not go unnoticed by the neighbors, who mocked them endlessly for their poor and juvenile taste.
2) One girl can attest to the fact that Port-A-Potties are very slippery! She would like to give the following advice: if you do happen to fall in one, don't hold on to the toilet bowl for leverage! Especially after it's been four days in the hot Tennessee sun, used by thousands of asses around the farm. She regrets this poor decision the most.3) Southerners do not appreciate you imitating their accents. One of our enterprising girls may have learned this the hard way. This girl would also like to add that it's not advisable to brag about winning the Civil War to someone who has a Confederate flag sticker on their car.
See you next year, Tennessee!
