I took a nice refreshing sip of the small glass of ice cold Pepsi that the air-hostess had offered me. As I finished the drink, I flipped through one of the magazines that they had provided as well, tucked in a little pocket behind the seat in front of me. The magazine was at least three or four years old. You could tell just by looking at the dented cover and the crayons and markers that drew little mustaches on people's faces. The magazine was pretty much advertising stuff that I'd never be able to afford. I mean, six dollars is enough to get me three packs of gum and a small can of soda where I come from. The only thing here that's actually something I can afford is this souvenir key-chain worth four dollars that I can get from one of the gift shops at the airport. I make a face at it; it doesn't even look worth that much money, most likely ten cents, at the most. I flipped to another page and I was face to face with an "I love Georgia" t-shirt. I looked at the price. It was fifteen dollars. I gagged, thinking about how much fifteen dollars would get me back home.
I could go on and on about decent sized prices, explain to you how to bargain with a stubborn cashier, or, at the very least, teach you how to do some extreme couponing, since that's basically everything that I've grown up doing. After my mother had passed away, all my dad and I ever did was find ways on how we could save up some money. It was pretty hard for us, since my mom was the one who'd work 24/7; my dad just went around looking for whatever job he could find, since he wasn't very successful in his previous jobs. I still remember the disappointed look he had in his eyes when he sold all of my mother's jewelry, only to find out that it wasn't even worth fifteen hundred dollars.
My dad still held on to it though, along with piles of coupons that he always carried around. He distributed the money between the two of us evenly, so that way we had enough walking-around money, but I was instructed to never spend it unless it was an emergency. So basically I was walking around a bunch of clothing stores with around 500 dollars in my pocket, without spending a single penny. My dad was planning on saving the money for me to go to college, while I was yearning for some decent sized meals. But, after a long time of arguing, slamming doors, and ignoring each other in the kitchen, we had it his way, and pretty soon I was packing my bags and heading towards the Georgian School of Performing Arts and Musical Enhancement. Or, GSPM as they call it, which to be honest, nobody does. Not even the teachers, who are extremely peppy but you can tell in their eyes that they hate everybody.
Half of the kids that attend the school are high class snobs, who love to rub the name in your face. I know, because my cousin went there as well and said that all of the girls would wear matching denim jackets with little gold pins attached to symbolize whatever sorority they belonged to. The guys did the same; they'd wear varsity jackets with the letters representing their fraternity sewn on to the jacket with a shiny gold fabric. My cousin explained to me that each sorority and fraternity was competing with each other. Whichever sorority/fraternity threw the best parties, had the cutest uniform, or won the most class competitions was the one you'd have to get in. If you didn't, then you were already a loser. My cousin, Lia, unfortunately didn't get in and ended up joining a sorority that would throw stink bombs into the other's dorms.
Lia was pretty lucky though, she met a guy from a pretty popular fraternity on campus, I think its name was R0C with a zero instead of an "o" in the , the guy was interested in her, and after a couple of dates, he asked her to marry him. But that was years later. Jeffery was his name, except he liked to be called Jeff. Just like how my name is Allyson, yet I prefer to be called Ally. Anyway, Jeff is actually a pretty decent guy. He's volunteered at a bunch of shelters and sometimes he and Lia go sing Christmas carols on people's doorsteps. Now, he's working on his third label with his band, 2gether, and Lia is signing with Starr Records.
They both were pretty successful, and I used to tell the little kids I'd babysit their stories. Obviously, the girls didn't care because it involved no princess, and the boys didn't seem interested in the story at all. With a 'little' bit of tweaking, I was able to attract both of their attention. Let's just say that Jeff was now a knight in shining armor who was also a part time NASCAR driver, and Lia was a demon princess who would turn people she didn't like into stone.
Still thinking about Lia and if I'd ever meet my soul mate like the way she had, my eyes started to droop and I let out a huge yawn. I stood up from my seat to reach the compartment above, pulling out a small floral pillow my grandma knitted for me. I double-checked to make sure that everything was locked, and then I closed the compartment and sat back down in my seat. I put the pillow behind my neck and closed my eyes, dreaming about demon princesses and NASCAR drivers.
Little did I know that my life was about to change forever.