Throwback Thursday post #1

So, back when I was a teenager my sister and I hung out with a group of kids that were a mix among our two ages and years in school.  My senior year, we would go out to Denny's at 5:00 am before high school and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.  After the meal, my sister would always turn to me and say "Face?"  She was asking, "Is there anything on my face" a phrase she just shortened to "face".

 I loved these Denny's mornings because it meant waking up in the dark before the sun rose and riding together in the car with whoever happened to have one or be able to drive their parents' to school.  For a good few months, my dad had a job with a company car and I got to drive his. We'd drive the twenty minutes from Hartland to Denny's in Waukesha, listening to L7, or Wild Kingdom or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.   I loved these Denny's mornings because they were full of fun and laughter and a unbeatable before school special event feeling.

I also loved these Denny's mornings because we all would smoke cigarettes in the restaurant (back in the days when smoking happened right at the table) without fear of being caught by a parent.  We invented a word for cigarettes to say around our parents so they wouldn't know what we were saying.  "Shmeedie" was the word for a cigarette and "Shmeedie Gurp" was the word for a cigarette break.  We'd be sitting around at my house and someone would say "Shmeedie Gerp?"  And we'd all go out, feeling so sneaky.  I remember rubbing my hands with pine needles from a hedge outside, thinking I was masking the smell. I'm not sure that we were really getting anything past anyone.  I remember being questioned about the smoke smell and saying things like "Yeah, it was really smoky there. People were blowing smoke right on me!"  I mean, honestly!  Who did I think I was fooling!

After the Denny's runs, I'd get to school and sit on top my desk, ready to answer questions in English class, hopped up on caffeine and an early morning outing with friends.