“Laurie, how did you get tickets to this thing?” Marty asked. He still couldn’t believe that she got tickets to Worldstock, Miami’s newest and supposedly hottest world music festival. “tickets for this thing usually go for 700 bucks a pop.”
“Easy” Laurie said, “the school gave them to me as compensation for the spring play getting cancelled.”
Marty nodded. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “that crazy, Wild-West version of Cinderella. Why did they cancel it?”
“Well,” Laurie began, “the ‘Cinderella’ (well, Stacy, anyway) was supposed to wear this bright pink saloon girl outfit. I looked terrible in it, it clashed really, really badly with the red hair. As a result, they kicked me out of the play.”
Marty’s eyes widened. “They kicked you out because you didn’t look good in a costume? That’s awful!”
Laurie nodded and smiled deviously. “Oh, it gets better” she said, “I told Prudence about it, and somehow, her parents got wind of it, and they complained to the school. They didn’t complain about me getting kicked out of the play for not looking good in the costume.”
“No.” Laurie laughed, “They complained about the fact that the play had saloon girls in it, thus making it somehow inappropriate, since, according to them, saloon girls are basically ‘early American Hooter’s girls’ and thus overly sexual. Long story short, the school cancelled the play.”
Meanwhile, Gwen overheard everything Laurie said. “You know,” she chimed in, “none of that would have happened if you could do a chin up.”
Laurie raised an eyebrow. Her jaw dropped slightly. “Are you insinuating this is my fault, Gwen?”
“No” Gwen said in the most monotone voice she could muster, “I’m stressed, what happened to you really upset me, I didn’t know what else to say.”
Marty looked at Gwen. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“Strings band,” she said, “we’re opening for Loreena McKennitt.”
The three of them continued to talk. Well, actually, Laurie and Marty talked, Gwen couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Eventually, the bus pulled up to the front gates. The gates to Worldstock opened.
Contrary to what Laurie, Marty, Gwen, and thousands of others had been told; Worldstock actually took place in an abandoned resort development full of roads that led to nowhere. No infrastructure, only half-finished skeletons of actual stages, and no hope.
To make matters worse, Worldstock fell on the same weekend as a major pre-Olympic sailing race series that utilized all of the local hotels, vacation rentals and resources.
“What the fuck?!” someone said.
“Turn this bus around!” said another.
“Is this supposed to be a music festival?” a third person demanded, “If it is, it’s about as slapped together as what Judy’s currently wearing.”
“Hey, shut up!” Judy barked.
If the Worldstock music festival were a piece of architecture, it would be a flight of stairs consisting of three cement blocks held together by a carpet. On top of the nearly nonexistent infrastructure, staff frequently damaged luggage, drank on the job, and in general, had no clue what the fuck they were doing. When Laurie and Marty went to pick up their bags, Marty caught baggage handlers trying to steal the urn out of his suitcase immediately after they threw it onto the ground and the suitcase split open.
“Hey!“ he barked, “those are my dad’s ashes!” He totally forgot that the ashes were in his suitcase. Three years ago, his family planned to take the ashes to New Orleans and scatter them in the front yard of the house where his dad grew up, but such a trip never materialized.
The baggage handlers continued to play football with the urn, until summer to get through it and it landed on the ground and broke. Almost immediately afterwards, a stray cat walked up to the ashes, dug a hole, and went to the bathroom.
The musicians didn’t have it any easier than the guests. When Gwen (along with the few other musical acts that hadn’t pulled out) attempted to find the artist sign in booth, a disorganized and clueless staff member just handed them a booklet for the event.
On top of problems with the staff, the organizers of the event also forgot something crucial: toilets! Many people who tried to look for the bathrooms only found one port-a-potty, with of course, no toilet paper. Seriously! There wasn’t a square to spare.
It took Gwen way too long to sign in, and even longer to find where her peers in the band were supposed to meet. But once Gwen got there, she would be in for a shock. “Ah, Gwen,” said her band teacher, Mr. Barclay, “glad you could make it. There’s actually something I wanna tell you.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Gwen replied, “couldn’t find the place because these idiots don’t know what they’re doing. I ask for directions, they give me a brochure for the event!”
“It’s OK, Gwen.” said Mr. Barclay, “You weren’t actually supposed to show up.”
Gwen couldn’t believe what she just heard. “What?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you? We kicked you out.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? You kicked me out?” She spoke in a way that her words felt like getting stuck with a long, thick needle, “you mean I memorized the song from Lord of the Rings for nothing?!”
“Well,” Mr. Barclay continued, “we didn’t really have a choice but to get rid of you. You play the violin left-handed.”
“It’s a safety issue. All the bows have to go in the same direction, otherwise you risk taking someone’s eye out. Either get with the program and play violin normally, or go play the violin somewhere else.”
Gwen struggled to comprehend the feeling of what had just happened. She was unable to catch her breath. A passerby would have assumed that she was either panting so much from running the New York Marathon or panicking because she was afraid of getting busted for cheating during the New York Marathon by taking the subway. Either way, she stood there, out of breath and visibly sweaty.
What they couldn’t see was her numb right arm. They couldn’t see the chest pains. They couldn’t see her oxygen starved heart cells die off like flies.
“WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM!? CAN’T YOU SEE HOW HURT I AM??!! BAND MEANT THE WORLD TO ME AND NOW YOU’RE KICKING ME OUT FOR BEING LEFT HANDED?!?! FUCK YOU!! FUCK YOU AND EVERYONE YOU- ”, she shouted at her band teacher. Before she could finish, a stream of vomit exited her mouth at a 30 degree angle and landed in the bell of some poor guy’s tuba. Despite being at a healthy weight of 113 pounds for her 5'2" frame, she actually had a heart attack. She may have been thin, but she still had a heart attack, as evidenced by the chest pains, racing heart, and second stream of barf that just flew out of her mouth.
Why? Her heart just plain couldn’t cope with the shock of Mr. Barclay ejecting from band the way her body ejected vomit from her mouth as increasing volumes of her heart cells died from lack of oxygen.
“NOW LOOK WHAT YOU BASTARDS DID!! CALL AN AMBULANCE, I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK BECAUSE OF YOU!!!” she shouted as she ran away, “MR. BARCLAY, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”
Laurie didn’t even get the chance to tell Marty that there was no way that their first legit date could go any worse. Before she could even open her mouth, Gwen snuck up behind her. “Laurie, you, 911, now!”
Laurie turned around. She glared at Gwen “I’m on a date,” she barked, “so can you leave me alone?”
“No!” Gwen said sharply “this is an emergency!”
Between the festival turning out to be an actual dumpster and all the stuff that happened with the play getting cancelled, Laurie just lost it. “OK, I see, but take your emergency somewhere else.” she nearly growled at Gwen “I’m on a date”
Gwen stood there in shock. “Who are you?” she asked.
Laurie shook her head, flabbergasted. “I’m your best friend. We’ve known each other our whole lives!”
Yeah, Gwen thought, if you really were my best friend, you’d call 911. “Can you put the date thing aside and just call 911 before I collapse?”
Laurie started to flare her nostrils and stomp her feet. “What part of I’m on a date do you not understand?! I can’t call 911, I’m busy; so, just cheese it!”
Gwen fell to her knees. She dry heaved twice before any actual words came out of her mouth. “You’re not the same.“ she gasped, "I don’t know who you are anymore.”
"I haven’t changed here, but that’s beside the issue” bellowed a now fuming and frantically pointing Laurie, “The problem here is that the school cancelled my play because the morons in costume design couldn’t be bothered with designing a costume that would go with my red hair, and the consolation the school gave me were these tickets to a dumpster fire of a music festival. I need to be the centre of attention right now, not you; so make like a tree and get out!”
Gwen threw up on Laurie. It was her only defense.
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