The WB Stories, Part I

The following is a list of our best WB moments from high school, and is intended to be a companion piece to the following post. Enjoy!

Neutralized

One time, M.C. led a WB raid with the help of his LeBaron Convertible. The other participants were Savvy, Savvy's friend "Fernandez," a short, funny, Hispanic kid from the year below who was funny but careless, and yours truly. The projectiles of choice this night were strictly water balloons. The target: "Dryer," a tall, stocky, lower classman who used to be bearable but had gotten cocky as hell since his parents bought him a brand new sports car at age 16. None of us liked him so the choice was unanimously approved.

The problem: Dryer's dad was a cop. In fact, more than that, it looked like he had a pretty good chance of being elected Sheriff of the entire county. With this in mind, we knew we had to be extra careful to not get IDed lest we find ourselves spending a night in the county lockup with the dregs of the community, our cars searched, our parents audited, and God knows what else. I should have known, especially with the crew we had, that this one was above our current capacity for quiet assault. But we went, anyway.

We decided the best course of action was to make a U-Turn so we could shoot straight out of the street Dryer lived on in case there was any trouble. Also, I can't remember the exact details, but we decided to either all throw from right next to the car, or have 2 go up to the house and 2 stay in the car. Either way, we all got right up to the house to begin the assault.

Savvy and Fernandez jumped out of the car first, peppering the house and roof with quality-made water-filled grenades while Fernandez, throwing caution to the wind, screamed "Drrryyyyeerrrrrrrrrrrr!!!" Meanwhile, I stood up in the car, hauling long bombs onto the Dryer property. After a minute or two of high-quality assault, Savvy and Fernandez jumped back into the convertible and we went to take off.

M.C., the faithful driver, slammed on the gas. The car made a revving sound, followed by a high-pitched noise, but we went nowhere. We all looked around in stunned silence. M.C. checked to make sure the emergency brake wasn't depressed, but it wasn’t. He hit the gas again, and the car failed to move again.

At this point, Fernandez screamed "Oh Shit!," and Savvy and I made similar remarks. We heard a few noises behind us, and Fernandez started to get up, prepared to make a break for it on foot.

"Hold on!" M.C. screamed. M.C. moved our box of balloons out of the way and found the problem. Either as we out of the car, or got back in, someone had knocked the shifter from "Drive" to "Neutral." Like a scene from Independence Day, M.C. slammed the shifter back into place immediately, and the car lurched forward. We all slammed back against the backs of our seats, our skulls nice and frapped from the impact. The tires squealed and we made like a shepherd in getting the flock out of there.

The Black Bomber

One night on Halloween we decided it would be a worthwhile excursion to fill up a car with water balloons and go nail some trick-or-treaters. The assassins on this trip were me, Savvy, and "Slim," a year younger friend of Savvy's who really did not have the mind for the game but was more loyal and less reckless than Fernandez. I'm not sure if M.C. came or not, but, the major point is that we did NOT have the use of a convertible, meaning that drive-bys had to be up close and personal. When we were filling up balloons, I decided to try and fill a few as far as they would go. The result was quite a few destroyed balloons, but one major success -- a large blackish purple monstrosity that I instantly nicknamed "The Black Bomber."

Now, the BB was huge -- with three times the volume of a normal water balloon (maybe more), it clearly could only be used for a special target. Unfortunately, being the perfectionist that I was with my craft, I kept passing up the chance to use it. I was chastised as being a female body part numerous times on this night, and I have to admit now that it was probably warranted. But finally, the perfect opportunity presented itself.

We came across a group of about seven high school age kids loitering along the side of the street, ostensibly going trick-or-treating. We rolled up slowly but swiftly beside them. As we were about 10-20 feet from them, I poked my head out of the window and yelled "Blaaaaaaaaaack Bomberrrrrrrrrrr!" I will never forget the scream that followed. Some girl along the side of the road opened up her lungs and let out a yell that has absolutely no business anywhere but in a C-rate horror movie. Now, don't get me wrong, the scream was genuine fear, but it was not the scream normally associated with a surprise fright -- it was way too loud and guttural. Regardless, I was able to get my wits about me and heave the balloon in their direction. The Black Bomber wiggled in the air like Jell-O and hit ground zero at the feet of the group, gushing and splashing all over their shoes and pants. Many of them recoiled in surprise as we sped away laughing.

For many months, the phrase "Black Bomber" brought laughs to my mind and that of my partners. The fact that I yelled it out before the strike had surpassed the actual event in the minds of my partners-in-crime. I guess in some ways my friends were laughing at me instead of with me, but I didn't care. I never made another balloon so big.

The Getaway, It's Not

And now, the most ridiculous of them all. One night, we were looking to blow off some steam after some stupid school event that left us all angry and dissatisfied. We filled up a few buckets with a ton of water balloons, looking to wreak havoc on the community. The people along for the ride this time were me, M.C. (with convertible), Savvy, and two girls that Savvy knew, "Craze," a short, cinnamon girl who was absolutely insane and had a crush on both me and Savvy, and "Inconsequential Girl," a friend of Craze's. To this day, I have no idea how this team was assembled, and I don't want to remember. This was the most reckless, loud-mouthed, inaccurate WB group we have ever had, and it showed. We probably missed near 50% of the time, which I guess was part of the fun for the ladies. After we had caused a ruckus on one end of the town, I suggested we try another to lessen the chance of being caught. In transit, one member of our group broke the Cardinal Rule of WB-ing, and we paid dearly (well, kind of) for it.

Now, if you had told me someone was going to screw up, I would have put $10,000 on the chance that it would be one of the girls. But for some reason, it was M.C. who made the fatal mistake. As we were accelerating away from a red light, on a long, oft-traveled, and extremely well lit road, M.C. tossed a water balloon at a car driven by a classmate of ours, "Pudd." Pudd could clearly identify M.C., and, what's worse, since he was right freaking next to us, most definitely had the ability to seek revenge. And, that's what we thought he was doing when he and the passenger in the car, "Spork," began to chase us down the road.

What followed was perhaps the most ridiculous half-hour of my life. We packed so many mistakes, overreactions, and lunatic assertions into the event that you would have thought we were at a school board meeting in Texas. Listen to this:

First, while I to this day still do not understand what the hell M.C. was thinking starting an unprovoked, un-agreed to attack in the worst area of the town, he did make the correct first move -- he did not wait around in the area or confront Pudd on such a well-lighted street. He turned down a much more desolate road and slammed on the gas, leaving Pudd a good bit behind him. But rational thought did not last long. By this time, the girls, especially Craze, were frantic, screaming, yelling, and throwing the remaining balloons and boxes out of the car. I was practically pelted with cardboard, plastic, and water as they littered the side of the road with our munitions. Savvy tried to calm them down, but was clearly amused by the whole thing. Then the chase took a turn for the worse, literally.

At this point, all we had to do was keep going straight. M.C. was driving a relatively new Chrysler with a V6, 3.0 liter engine made by Mitsubishi, which packed roughly 150 horsepower at that time. Pudd was chasing us with some freaking jalopy, like a very early 1990s Dodge Shadow or Plymouth Colt, or something like that. It was not maintained well, and even right out of the factory only had about 100 horsepower it its weak 4 cylinder engine. All M.C. had to do was keep going down this road, build up a tenth of a mile lead or so, get on the Interstate (which was nearby after we hit the end of the road we were on), and go down a few exits, and we would be ghosts.

Again, for some strange reason which I don't understand, M.C. decided to turn down a dirt road and try to hide. Now, I was very vocal about this. At first, I thought it might have been a good idea, because I thought he was turning around and was going to speed right past them in the other direction. But when I realized that was not the plan, I immediately said this was a bad idea. Down a dirt road, with our lights on, we would be visible for miles. And, of course, Pudd saw us and chased us. Eventually, we got so far in that we could go nowhere but back out, and there was Pudd, blocking us in. Savvy, M.C. and I prepared for a fight.

Did we get into a fight? No. Did a rational conversation follow? Of course not. Pudd, who was as thin as a twig and not very self-confident, walked over to the car. Spork, a husky and incredibly stupid kid who liked to pretend he was tough, stood a few feet from the car with his arms crossed, trying his best to look like a bodyguard or some shit. No one who opened their mouth made any sense. Basically, Pudd said he would not let any of us leave until M.C. apologized to him, which M.C. refused to do. Pudd made no sense in his reasons for demanding an apology. At one point, he said this:

"I just can't believe you threw that at me. It could have done a lot of damage to my car. I mean, [M.C.], what if it was a brick?"

This stalemate continued for about ten minutes. It was clear that no one wanted a confrontation. The weird part was that no one besides the two of them really talked. In fact, Pudd never even acknowledged that any of us were there besides M.C., which we all later thought was weird. For our part, I can say that neither Savvy, me, or the girls were scared, although we were all weirded out, and at least part of the reason was because none of us could think of anything to say that would end this debate. I mean, I could empathize with him being angry for being hit, but he wasn't angry at all. In all honesty, Spork was more angry than Pudd was. Pudd just seemed obsessed with the idea of portraying himself as a victim to M.C. I guess in Pudd's mind having his car hit with a water balloon constituted putting him in danger, but engaging in an 80 mile per hour chase put none of us in harm's way. Eventually, Savvy mentioned that we had to get the girls home, and we all drove away. I think M.C. ended up giving a half-hearted apology, but Pudd also expressed regret for keeping him locked into the conversation.

The Aftermath? Well, for the rest of the year, every time Pudd would run into M.C. in class or in the halls, he would be super-nice to him, practically offering to clean his pipes. M.C. never broke the Golden Rule of WB-ing again. The girls never went on another trip with us, but Craze did try to date both me and Savvy at different times during the year, to no avail. When we tell that story today, no one really believes us. It has become kind of like an old wives tale, a Keiser Soze-type story that people think we are telling them solely to scare them into not breaking the WB rules. But I can assure you that this story is true -- awkwardly, fully, and entirely true. The moral? Mess with the WB rules at your own peril.