Life Lesson #16: I’m so totally over being stupid, mean and/or illegal. Ahem…well…at least illegal. I will never, however, be over the Bangles.

On Saturday evening, Madonna, Mico, Flower and I went to a bar to get drunk and dance to live music. Once the all-female group started belting out Johnny-Walker-and-menthol-cigarette-coated versions of Walk Away and Walk Like an Egyptian, we immediately formed our own chick band that will kick any other girl band’s ass.

Madonna, the only one who can actually sing, and widely known for her great hair, was promptly given vocals. Flower, who fears her lack of cleavage might be a detriment to the group but with seriously envious arm muscles, decided to take on the drums. Mico, who can’t really play any instruments but is the hottest dancer this side of Central Park, was bestowed the job of the tambourine shaker.

I, with some past violin experience and a mean side step, took on lead guitar. I also taught myself how to play Heal the World on a mini Casio keyboard when I was ten, so I figure I can hit a button or two to make those crazy synthesizer noises, if need be.

And although she doesn’t know it, Westchester was given the cameo for any song that required an instrument we didn’t have covered. Such as Don’t Fear the Reaper. She would provide the necessary cow bell.

We each spent the remainder of the night bringing our own unique brand of drunk to the table and danced like nobody was watching. Partly because it was fun; but mostly because we really don’t give a damn what other people think of us.

Which I realize, is truly refreshing.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us, when young, spent every waking moment caring about any single thought others might have of us.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we spent a hell of a lot of time trying to seem smart and hot and cool. We pulled the craziest stunts to earn our place in the world. Most of us thought the consequences, if any, were a small price to pay for being as close to the top of the social ladder as possible. Sure, we acted like we didn’t care what others thought of us, but just about everything we said or did was to prove how smart and hot and cool we were trying so hard to be.

I remember justifying serving detention if it meant rolling up my already obscenely short school skirt one more time, doing keg stands in ten degree weather in a playground off the Bronx River Parkway, taking boxes of plastic utensils and ‘forking’ people’s front lawns in the middle of the night, telling my parents I was going to see Selena for the third time that month when really, I was sneaking into bars with a fake New Jersey ID, and pushing (literally) an innocent girl’s car out of the school parking lot just to mess with her head.

Most of what we did was some form of stupid, mean and/or illegal.

Sure, I’ve got some great memories from my teenage years, and if I was forced to do it all over, there is very little I’d do differently. But my point is there isn’t enough money in the world to make me want to go back to that time again. Once was more than enough.

Because for me, I thought there was nothing worse than the feeling that I might get caught, that my parents would get a call one Friday night, only to be told that their daughter was found doing shots of Peach Schnapps in a dirty bar in the Bronx or reeking public damage via forks and half-filled Dixie cups on someone’s private property.

Seriously, do you remember the first time you really thought you were about to get in trouble? I mean the handcuffs, the call to your parents, the inevitable grounding that would last for months, on top of whatever Westchester County pulled out of its sleeve on your looming court date? All because you got wrapped up in a moment of trying to fit in with everyone around you.

It didn’t even make such a difference whether I really did get in trouble in the end. What really mattered was the countless times I thought, Oh fuck, I am so about to get caught. My mom is going to kick my ass. And every time that thought came into my head, I felt as if I was going to be violently ill with guilt and fear and the faintest knowledge of my own stupidity.

I’m pretty sure that’s how my little brother felt Wednesday night.

I got the phone call around midnight as I lay in a glorious hotel bed at the Sheraton Meadowlands. My company really knows how to do it up for out-of-office conferences.

I saw the number was from my parents’ house. And my heart stopped for a brief second.

My mom and dad were in London that week. My little brother was left home by himself, our parents safe in the knowledge that he’s a smart eighteen year old with a college acceptance letter in hand and a good head on his shoulders. They probably assumed the worst they’d come home to would be some crusty dishes in the sink and an overflowing hamper of dirty clothes. I, on the other hand, being younger, wiser, and privy to the past actions of his siblings before him, knew a house party would surely be underway at some point during the week. Because that’s what you do when you’re young, and hosting a party when your parents are out of town means you’re cool. And when I checked in on him earlier that day, he mentioned people might be over. So, like any good sister would do, I told him to call me if he needed anything.

I answered my phone quickly, assuming he either got sick, someone else got sick, someone got our dog sick, or someone broke something that was more than likely way too expensive for the combined group to replace.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Penny?” a woman asked me.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Sergant Hibb with the White Plains Police Department.”

Oh fuck. So this is what it feels like to be a parent, to have responsibility beyond yourself and the dumb shit that you try to pull. Which in my brother’s case was a party on a Wednesday night that quickly got out of hand. The cops came, kids ran, and my brother must have thought that wasn’t such a bad idea either. So he peeled out of there to hide out in the nature preserve across from our house.

As I spent the next few hours trying to track my brother down, trying to get the cops out of my parent’s house and desperately trying to avoid involving said parental units, I had a few flashbacks to my own rebellious teen years. Weekends in Hartford at Dave Matthews concerts where getting kicked out of the hotel was only moments away, or hiding out in back alleys to avoid cop raids at dive bars. Not only am I pretty much responsible for every close call, every disaster, every bad night that I‘ve experienced; my parents have had to deal with it just as much as I have. And man, does that suck for them. I guess you sign yourself up for that when you decide to pop out a few little ones. But who ever expects their kids to be the ones bullying others around or inviting fifty random people over to play beer pong on the kitchen table?

I guess I never really understood that until Wednesday night.

Life Lesson #16: Even the sweetest time traveling machine couldn’t lure me back to the teen years. They were fun, but they were hard: on me, on my parents, and definitely on that girl whose car we moved. I think I spent too much time caring what everyone else would think of me – except my parents I guess.

For now, I’m just gonna shake my shoulders and play air guitar like the rock star I was born to be. In theory, I won’t get in any trouble for that. And no one else should get hurt.