September '72-Mr. Robbins Classroom
By the time all of us were eleven, the family trips seemed to fall far and few between, as my parents began to fight with increasing regularity. In an attempt to avoid the tug of war game they seemed to try playing with me, I'd been spending more and more of my time in the Forman's basement. As the years went by, the pranks on Eric had lessened considerably and more of our attention in this regard had started to falling to Kelso. Considering all the years Hyde and I pulled the pranks on Eric, he was more than happy that we'd moved on, and to help cement that fact, more often than not he joined forces with us in going after Kelso. Ironically, though Kelso to a small extent, still seemed to enjoy the burns, they never failed to get a rise out of him, which all of us found extremely hilarious.
Anyway...with the summer of '72 come and gone, and school just beginning for yet another year, we were beginning to settle into the back to school blues. Sensing the malaise of the entire class, our teacher decided that a class trip to the Royal Wisconsin Museum in Madison might just be the thing we needed to settle back into the whole school thing for another year. Now, usually a trip like this would bring nothing but groans, I mean, who really wants to spend such a beautiful day in a cold smelly museum with a bunch of bones, but hey anything's better than class right? Besides, might be a good place to cause some mischief. From the look on Hyde's face, I can see he agrees with me, and I know that it wouldn't take much convincing to get Eric in on the plan. Especially if it was at Kelso's expense. Meanwhile, Kelso sat there in his desk, checking out his feathered hair and undoubtedly contemplating his future 'foxitude', as he liked to call it, completely ignorant of the fact that he was gonna be the object of yet another great burn.
On the bus to Madison
To try and make a long story short, the trip was relatively uneventful outside of Hyde and I bickering the entire way. Hyde and I decided we should sit together, so we can plot the museum prank on Kelso without his knowledge. Figured we'd let Eric in on the plan after we got there and he could escape Kelso, who he ended up sitting with across the aisle. Felt kinda bad for him really, having to listen to Kelso's latest adventures with a pack of dogs on the way to school that day. How that kid manages to coast by, I doubt I'll ever know. Well, turned out our seating arrangement wasn't such a good idea, since what Hyde thought would be a good prank to pull, seemed to be taking things a little further than a simple prank should be taken...at least in my opinion. I mean, what good could come of planting some gift shop merchandise on Kelshmoe? Sure, it'd be kinda funny to have him get caught and be hauled away, but it would cause more trouble than anything else, and could end up blowing up in all our faces. Hyde however, disagreed. He just saw the mental image of Kelso getting carted off and searched by museum security hilarious. We were at an impasse, and seeing as neither of us was willing to budge an inch, the battle commenced. A battle that lasted the entire first half of the day, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Royal Wisconsin Museum/Madison
Hyde and I got so involved in our argument that we were the last off the bus, still bickering at each other all the while. Kelso and Eric were already long gone into the museum. They'd apparently seen us fighting, and decided to leave us alone to work it out ourselves. We followed the rest of the class into the museum and directly to the dinosaur exhibit. Mr. Robbins was blabbing on about the feeding habits of some dinosaur, whose skeleton we were standing in front of. I missed most of the discussion though as Hyde and I continued to squabble with other, though we did it quietly so we wouldn't get caught and reprimanded in front of the class, cause nothing was more embarrassing than that. Finally though, I'd had it and decided to just ignore him. To that end, I turned to listen to Robbins endless rambling about the dinosaur. It took less than five minutes for me to lose interest in that, so I looked Eric and Kelso's direction to see what they were up to. As usual, Kelso was rambling on about one of his two favourite subjects...Jackie.
Jackie Burkhart, the annoying, loud, bossy lil midget that had started following Kelso into the basement about six months ago. She hasn't left since. If nothing else, I was glad we were on this trip from hell today, just to get away from her for a while. Being a year younger than us, she wasn't in this class...good thing too, otherwise I'd have to see her spending the day hanging off of Kelso like usual. I swear, the girl must've been a lamprey in a previous life of something, but I digress...
Seeing Kelso mid-ramble makes me feel kinda bad for poor Eric. Stuck in the midst of a Kelso gabfest with no way to escape...better him than me, I guess. Before I could get to feeling too badly for him though, Hyde tapped me on the shoulder and signalled for me to follow him across the hall. With no other escape from Robbins incessant chatter (Geez, this guy must have no life, as he seems to know more about this dinosaur than The World Book), or the same ongoing Jackie-praise, delivered Kelso-style that Eric's being subjected to, I opt to follow him, in spite of our current disagreement.
Unfortunately, within five minutes, I began to regret that very decision. He seemed more hell bent than ever to go through with the gift shop prank...especially after being irritated by the feather haired, headgear wearing moron's ramblings over Jackie, who for some reason has always annoyed him more than she has the rest of us. However, despite my own irritation with him, I still don't think that prank is the best idea. So, back into full blown squabble mode we go. Next thing we know, half an hour and countless burns later, we still haven't solved anything. At this point, we decide to call a temporary truce, figuring we should go and rejoin the rest of the class. Only problem was, when we headed back to the dinosaur exhibit where we had last seen everyone, they were gone. We were lost.
This being a huge museum, we both knew it would take a while, not to mention a miracle to find them. Now, I'm sure you think we would look for someone to help us find the class or something...wrong answer. Instead we start blaming each other for causing this whole predicament in the first place, effectively ending our truce and getting us no where. We ended up spending the better part of the morning wandering the museum, and fighting over whose fault it was that we were stuck in this situation in the first place. Finally, around 10:00, I just got tired of the endless bickering and continued my search for everyone in silence. Hyde took the hint about two minutes later and decided to follow me, silently fuming the entire time.
By lunch time we were both hungry and tired, and were beginning to see how pointless our squabbling really was. Our chance of pulling any prank on Kelso was long gone, and the two of us were lost in the middle of a gigantic museum. We needed to stop fighting and band together so we could figure out how to find our class, and rejoin them. As we sat and hurriedly ate our packed lunches, I couldn't help but wonder why no one had come looking for us by now. I thought either Eric or Kelso would have realized we were missing by now as well, but the only people we had come across all morning were some tourists from Michigan. No wonder Robbins brought us here...it's the off season and the museum needs to get the revenue from somewhere...
Two o'clock came and we were still lost and wandering around aimlessly. I began to get a little nervous at this point, as we'd already been wandering around for around four or five hours and gotten no where closer to rejoining our class. In fact, I swear I saw the painting we just passed about two hours ago...man, we were going in circles! Hyde took one look at me, and saw that I was beginning to get upset, so he decided to distract me from my concerns for a little while. How did he accomplish that you ask? With a devilish gleam in his eye, and a couple of stolen rolls of toilet paper.
He calls me over, with that look that could only mean trouble and says, "Guess what I found." I just shrug, completely clueless to what it could be when he pulls out the toilet paper from behind his back. "Just what are you planning to do with that?" I ask with a mischevious, yet skeptical look on my face. Then realizing he's started to respond, I look directly at him. "Remember that dinosaur Robbins was blabbing on about earlier?" he asks, raising his eyebrow. Immediately catching on, and realizing he must've been planning this since lunch time, we both sneak back in that direction, looking carefully to make sure no one was around. Like the rest of the museum, the area by the dinosaur skeleton was deserted, so we quietly crept up and toilet papered the hell out of it.
Once both rolls were gone, we stepped back, took a quick gander at our handywork, and howled with laughter. It looked like a twenty foot long, fifteen foot high abominable snow monster. How the thing got so well covered with only two rolls of toilet paper, I'll never know.
Finally collecting ourselves a few minutes later, we ran off before anyone could discover what we'd done. We ran and ran until our lungs were sore. Eventually, we collapsed against a wall gasping for breath. "Now what?" I asked, still gasping. "Hmmm..." he replied and looked at his watch. "Well, it's 3:30 now, and we were supposed to be on the bus back to the school for 3:45, so..." he added, as he looked back up at me. After spending most of the day wandering the museum, we knew our way around it like the back our hands. We headed toward the front entrance so we'd be on time to catch the bus home, and got outside at 3:45 sharp to find that everyone had already boarded the buses.
They had just realized that we were missing after the class had boarded the bus, they had performed the head count, and come up two students short. Mr. Robbins had just alerted the museum staff to the situation and had sent them back inside to look for us before boarding the bus again to keep an eye on the rest of the class. What happened next is still a mystery for me to this day. Maybe it was relief from finding everyone at last, or gratitude to him for taking my mind off things for a while with the whole dinosaur stunt, but before I knew what I was doing, I had leaned in and given him a soft kiss. I could tell my actions had taken him off guard a bit, as he just sat there stunned for a few seconds before he started to kiss me back. His response knocked me to my senses instantly, and I jerked myself away, once again smacking him across the face. Honestly, looking back on it, I'm not really sure what prompted me to slap him this time...most likely I was just angry with myself for initiating the kiss in the first place, or perhaps it was due to the fact that he responded so quickly, when he had to know it was a spur of the moment thing that hadn't really registered in my mind. Regardless, as that look of shock and rejection crossed his face, and was quickly covered by his zen mask, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret over my actions. Silently, we both turned and boarded the bus together, neither of us realizing that the pattern we had set had barely begun.
By the time all of us were eleven, the family trips seemed to fall far and few between, as my parents began to fight with increasing regularity. In an attempt to avoid the tug of war game they seemed to try playing with me, I'd been spending more and more of my time in the Forman's basement. As the years went by, the pranks on Eric had lessened considerably and more of our attention in this regard had started to falling to Kelso. Considering all the years Hyde and I pulled the pranks on Eric, he was more than happy that we'd moved on, and to help cement that fact, more often than not he joined forces with us in going after Kelso. Ironically, though Kelso to a small extent, still seemed to enjoy the burns, they never failed to get a rise out of him, which all of us found extremely hilarious.
Anyway...with the summer of '72 come and gone, and school just beginning for yet another year, we were beginning to settle into the back to school blues. Sensing the malaise of the entire class, our teacher decided that a class trip to the Royal Wisconsin Museum in Madison might just be the thing we needed to settle back into the whole school thing for another year. Now, usually a trip like this would bring nothing but groans, I mean, who really wants to spend such a beautiful day in a cold smelly museum with a bunch of bones, but hey anything's better than class right? Besides, might be a good place to cause some mischief. From the look on Hyde's face, I can see he agrees with me, and I know that it wouldn't take much convincing to get Eric in on the plan. Especially if it was at Kelso's expense. Meanwhile, Kelso sat there in his desk, checking out his feathered hair and undoubtedly contemplating his future 'foxitude', as he liked to call it, completely ignorant of the fact that he was gonna be the object of yet another great burn.
On the bus to Madison
To try and make a long story short, the trip was relatively uneventful outside of Hyde and I bickering the entire way. Hyde and I decided we should sit together, so we can plot the museum prank on Kelso without his knowledge. Figured we'd let Eric in on the plan after we got there and he could escape Kelso, who he ended up sitting with across the aisle. Felt kinda bad for him really, having to listen to Kelso's latest adventures with a pack of dogs on the way to school that day. How that kid manages to coast by, I doubt I'll ever know. Well, turned out our seating arrangement wasn't such a good idea, since what Hyde thought would be a good prank to pull, seemed to be taking things a little further than a simple prank should be taken...at least in my opinion. I mean, what good could come of planting some gift shop merchandise on Kelshmoe? Sure, it'd be kinda funny to have him get caught and be hauled away, but it would cause more trouble than anything else, and could end up blowing up in all our faces. Hyde however, disagreed. He just saw the mental image of Kelso getting carted off and searched by museum security hilarious. We were at an impasse, and seeing as neither of us was willing to budge an inch, the battle commenced. A battle that lasted the entire first half of the day, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Royal Wisconsin Museum/Madison
Hyde and I got so involved in our argument that we were the last off the bus, still bickering at each other all the while. Kelso and Eric were already long gone into the museum. They'd apparently seen us fighting, and decided to leave us alone to work it out ourselves. We followed the rest of the class into the museum and directly to the dinosaur exhibit. Mr. Robbins was blabbing on about the feeding habits of some dinosaur, whose skeleton we were standing in front of. I missed most of the discussion though as Hyde and I continued to squabble with other, though we did it quietly so we wouldn't get caught and reprimanded in front of the class, cause nothing was more embarrassing than that. Finally though, I'd had it and decided to just ignore him. To that end, I turned to listen to Robbins endless rambling about the dinosaur. It took less than five minutes for me to lose interest in that, so I looked Eric and Kelso's direction to see what they were up to. As usual, Kelso was rambling on about one of his two favourite subjects...Jackie.
Jackie Burkhart, the annoying, loud, bossy lil midget that had started following Kelso into the basement about six months ago. She hasn't left since. If nothing else, I was glad we were on this trip from hell today, just to get away from her for a while. Being a year younger than us, she wasn't in this class...good thing too, otherwise I'd have to see her spending the day hanging off of Kelso like usual. I swear, the girl must've been a lamprey in a previous life of something, but I digress...
Seeing Kelso mid-ramble makes me feel kinda bad for poor Eric. Stuck in the midst of a Kelso gabfest with no way to escape...better him than me, I guess. Before I could get to feeling too badly for him though, Hyde tapped me on the shoulder and signalled for me to follow him across the hall. With no other escape from Robbins incessant chatter (Geez, this guy must have no life, as he seems to know more about this dinosaur than The World Book), or the same ongoing Jackie-praise, delivered Kelso-style that Eric's being subjected to, I opt to follow him, in spite of our current disagreement.
Unfortunately, within five minutes, I began to regret that very decision. He seemed more hell bent than ever to go through with the gift shop prank...especially after being irritated by the feather haired, headgear wearing moron's ramblings over Jackie, who for some reason has always annoyed him more than she has the rest of us. However, despite my own irritation with him, I still don't think that prank is the best idea. So, back into full blown squabble mode we go. Next thing we know, half an hour and countless burns later, we still haven't solved anything. At this point, we decide to call a temporary truce, figuring we should go and rejoin the rest of the class. Only problem was, when we headed back to the dinosaur exhibit where we had last seen everyone, they were gone. We were lost.
This being a huge museum, we both knew it would take a while, not to mention a miracle to find them. Now, I'm sure you think we would look for someone to help us find the class or something...wrong answer. Instead we start blaming each other for causing this whole predicament in the first place, effectively ending our truce and getting us no where. We ended up spending the better part of the morning wandering the museum, and fighting over whose fault it was that we were stuck in this situation in the first place. Finally, around 10:00, I just got tired of the endless bickering and continued my search for everyone in silence. Hyde took the hint about two minutes later and decided to follow me, silently fuming the entire time.
By lunch time we were both hungry and tired, and were beginning to see how pointless our squabbling really was. Our chance of pulling any prank on Kelso was long gone, and the two of us were lost in the middle of a gigantic museum. We needed to stop fighting and band together so we could figure out how to find our class, and rejoin them. As we sat and hurriedly ate our packed lunches, I couldn't help but wonder why no one had come looking for us by now. I thought either Eric or Kelso would have realized we were missing by now as well, but the only people we had come across all morning were some tourists from Michigan. No wonder Robbins brought us here...it's the off season and the museum needs to get the revenue from somewhere...
Two o'clock came and we were still lost and wandering around aimlessly. I began to get a little nervous at this point, as we'd already been wandering around for around four or five hours and gotten no where closer to rejoining our class. In fact, I swear I saw the painting we just passed about two hours ago...man, we were going in circles! Hyde took one look at me, and saw that I was beginning to get upset, so he decided to distract me from my concerns for a little while. How did he accomplish that you ask? With a devilish gleam in his eye, and a couple of stolen rolls of toilet paper.
He calls me over, with that look that could only mean trouble and says, "Guess what I found." I just shrug, completely clueless to what it could be when he pulls out the toilet paper from behind his back. "Just what are you planning to do with that?" I ask with a mischevious, yet skeptical look on my face. Then realizing he's started to respond, I look directly at him. "Remember that dinosaur Robbins was blabbing on about earlier?" he asks, raising his eyebrow. Immediately catching on, and realizing he must've been planning this since lunch time, we both sneak back in that direction, looking carefully to make sure no one was around. Like the rest of the museum, the area by the dinosaur skeleton was deserted, so we quietly crept up and toilet papered the hell out of it.
Once both rolls were gone, we stepped back, took a quick gander at our handywork, and howled with laughter. It looked like a twenty foot long, fifteen foot high abominable snow monster. How the thing got so well covered with only two rolls of toilet paper, I'll never know.
Finally collecting ourselves a few minutes later, we ran off before anyone could discover what we'd done. We ran and ran until our lungs were sore. Eventually, we collapsed against a wall gasping for breath. "Now what?" I asked, still gasping. "Hmmm..." he replied and looked at his watch. "Well, it's 3:30 now, and we were supposed to be on the bus back to the school for 3:45, so..." he added, as he looked back up at me. After spending most of the day wandering the museum, we knew our way around it like the back our hands. We headed toward the front entrance so we'd be on time to catch the bus home, and got outside at 3:45 sharp to find that everyone had already boarded the buses.
They had just realized that we were missing after the class had boarded the bus, they had performed the head count, and come up two students short. Mr. Robbins had just alerted the museum staff to the situation and had sent them back inside to look for us before boarding the bus again to keep an eye on the rest of the class. What happened next is still a mystery for me to this day. Maybe it was relief from finding everyone at last, or gratitude to him for taking my mind off things for a while with the whole dinosaur stunt, but before I knew what I was doing, I had leaned in and given him a soft kiss. I could tell my actions had taken him off guard a bit, as he just sat there stunned for a few seconds before he started to kiss me back. His response knocked me to my senses instantly, and I jerked myself away, once again smacking him across the face. Honestly, looking back on it, I'm not really sure what prompted me to slap him this time...most likely I was just angry with myself for initiating the kiss in the first place, or perhaps it was due to the fact that he responded so quickly, when he had to know it was a spur of the moment thing that hadn't really registered in my mind. Regardless, as that look of shock and rejection crossed his face, and was quickly covered by his zen mask, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret over my actions. Silently, we both turned and boarded the bus together, neither of us realizing that the pattern we had set had barely begun.