A List of Best Intentions

I find it hard to complain about a lot of stuff. Instead of looking at the bad crap that’s going on at the moment, I try to see what’s good about it and build off of that. I can’t say it never got me in trouble, but it sure never stopped me from having a good time.

I had everything I needed at that point in my life – a few great friends, a boombox, and a TV right in my room. What more could a fifteen-year-old kid want? I was just like anybody else. I liked parties, I hated homework, I laughed at stupid cartoons even though I was way above the intended age group…there were a lot of things that could’ve kept me from doing the thing that ultimately led me to narrate this story to you right now.

But there was something about me the other kids didn’t have: I was sort of, kind of, insane. Least, that’s what my best-best buddy Cody told me all the time. I’d heard it from him a thousand times: “You’re crazy.” “You’re gonna kill yourself.” “Don’t eat that, Kevin.”

Since I met him he was kinda of a party pooper, ‘cause his mom died in a helicopter accident right after he was born and his dad freaked out and got too overprotective. Poor kid. I felt so sorry for him that I offered him a ride on my dirt bike – which, at the time, was incredibly tiny. It was right after he moved in to the house next to mine and just minutes after we met.

He called me nuts and asked why I wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Then we argued.

But I came over to his house and played with him every day ‘cause he didn’t have any friends. And then I probably became his first friend. And his best friend. And we’re still the tightest buds you could find, even if we technically kinda bonded ‘cause of pity from me, but I really do enjoy his company. He’s a cool dude and if it weren’t for him, my days living in a Georgia suburb would be a lot less bearable.

Ah, life was good. All I really needed was to play with him in our driveway every day and things were great.

So let’s fast forward ten years later. We were both fifteen years old.

The year was 1999.

And of course, Cody had found out about this tiny little phenomenon on the news and was just so freakin’ cool about it.

“What the heck is Y2K?” I mumbled, leaning back on the couch in my living room.

“It’s this thing that’s gonna come as soon as we roll into 2000. It’s gonna wipe out all our computers, and apparently the nuclear bombs are gonna go off,” he told me, shrugging as though it didn’t mean anything. It was just like him to not care about something that didn’t directly affect him. “That means no more TV, no more hot food, no more music -”

I cut him off and sat up straight, a little skeptical of the words that were coming outta his mouth. “Are you pullin’ my leg? That’s nuts!”

I guess it’s a far cry from if it were to happen nowadays, but people were getting more and more reliant on technology back then. More folks were getting computers in their houses and using this thing called the “Internet” to talk to people across the world, and even though our cell phones were basically bricks, they were still considered to be the pinnacle of technological developments. I’m a pretty easygoing dude; I can react to change in a fairly calm way.

On the other hand, like everyone else at my school, I didn’t realize how linked up my life really was until Cody mentioned the possibility of it all going away. I lived off of the TV. My CD player kept me going through the days. And food was pretty good, too.

He cocked his brow at my outburst. “Yeah. Nuts. It’s coming in four months, supposedly.”

I sighed and started thinking. Cody was a total skeptic, but what he said still had me a bit worried. With it being ’99 and all, this Y2K mumbo-jumbo was all over the place, but I thought it was just about the Internet. That was just a boring fad, as far as I was concerned.

But now that even Cody knew the details, I had to brush up on my knowledge. After reading the newspaper later that day and going the library for once in my lifetime, I knew exactly what was going on, and I was scared.

I wasn’t so quick to give up my electronics. I was in denial for the first half of the year, just shrugging off all the panic since 2000 seemed like a long ways off. However, with it nearing the middle of August, four months were left until doom would rise. That wasn’t a lot of time.

I think that’s what they called “procrastinating.” It’s like when you get homework at school and you put it off for a long time until the night before you gotta turn it in. That’s what I was doing when it came to Y2K, I think.

I took a deep breath, coming back to reality.

Cody smacked my shoulder. “Uh oh. That’s your thinkin’ face. Ugh…”

I was thinking. Why did everyone say I have a “thinking face?” Was it that rare?

I stood up and threw my arms in the air.

“That’s it!”

“What’s what?” Cody did not sound thrilled.

“We are going to make a list!”

“What?”

“A list! A list of everything we’re gonna try and do before 2000. Dude…like, we’re gonna make ourselves famous if we’re gonna die.” I could practically see stars as I said it!

“You’re an idiot, Kevin…” he mumbled.

“Ten years from now, kids’re gonna be reading about us in the history books while riding around in jetpacks, and talkin’ on their phone implants, and listening to little tiny CDs!”

“If the world’s ending, nobody’s gonna read about us…” he continued under his breath.

“I am a genius!”

Every word that rolled off the tongue was truth. I had a wicked idea that me and Cody could really pull off…possibly my best idea, I thought. At the time that was my best thought, really. It was brilliant!

Cody stared at me for a second. “You can’t be serious.”

“Yeah!” I smiled.

He shook his head, looking at the floor. “Whatever. I’ll do it. But the second we get thrown in jail, your ass goes in the fireplace.”

He slammed his soda can on the coffee table, which my mom heard from the next room and prompted her to shout, “Coaster, Cody!”

So he groaned and set a newspaper under it, grumbling something about political happenings detailed in those articles.

I didn’t hear him, really. I think that’s what he was talking about. I was too busy getting an early start on my list, feeling my brain boil from the getgo.

“We gotta do something epic, dude,” I added.

He stared at me blankly, his mouth hanging open. “Like what?”

“Like, we gotta make lists! Get cracking!”

~~~~~

That night, I wracked my brain to come up with the best ideas to live it up before everything would go under. I’ll admit, some of them were really dumb and probably couldn’t happen on planet Earth (Number six – bang Brittany Spears), but heck, I didn’t count anything out! Why would I? Anything can happen. Not everything is possible, but it can happen!

“…Rock out with a local band, jump across a building gap…meet Third Eye Blind, Sublime, Courtney Love, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones? You’re bananas!” Cody gasped the next day. We were in my driveway talking about my list over the usual game of Horse.

“Oh yeah? What’d you think of it so far?”

Cody kicked the dirt. “Wear underwear on my head. Party it up, man.”

“Lame.”

“Well, what’re the odds that you’re gonna shake hands with all those bands?”

“Better than your odds of enjoying yourself, dude.”

He shut up. Yeah, I didn’t have my heart set on meeting any of those folks, but I could hope. This was a list of events I wanted to happen – they didn’t necessarily have to be within reach.

“Third Eye Blind’s coming to Atlanta next month, but I doubt we’ll have the money,” he shrugged, ever so pessimistic, dribbling the ball slowly.

“Nah, we’ll find a way. Chill,” I assured.

“Can’t chill when the world’s ending, Kev.”