AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE COMMON USE OF FORKS…

BY AMY PESTA

It took him forever to answer the door to his mansion of a house. Standing outside, we could hear the unfamiliar giggles of the girls too young to realize what an ass they were hanging out with. What was that awful music playing? The door finally opened. “Hey… uh… I kinda don’t want this many people here,” Logan said. “So…maybe you guys could go. I just have a few people here and I don’t know if it’s really your scene.”

Logan•Slone n 1: epitome of only child syndrome 2: spoiled and overconfident sex-fiend 3: disillusioned loser syn fool, asshole

It was a tragically hypocritical moment. Mr. Always-the-first-to-show-up-uninvited actually asked us to leave. I’m sure we were getting in the way of his hopes to score with one of the many glossy-lipped freshmen sitting in his living room.

As we walked down his long, winding, private driveway, I couldn’t hold my thoughts in any longer. “This is bullshit,” I said.

Amy•Pesta n 1: opinionated enemy of all forms of bullshit 2: paradox of self-conscious confidence 3: imaginative, high-spirited individual

Logan was a member of “ADC,” which is the name that our group of guy friends liked to go by. Of course, we weren’t cool enough to know what it stood for. It was a secret. Who does that? How old are you? Despite the fifth grade girl-ness that their little boys club embodied, we liked the rest of the boys, and they all liked Logan. We had no choice but to hang out with him; he came as a package deal with the rest of them. Not only did he receive our scorn for being a member of the oh-so-prestigious ADC, but he especially earned it on a daily basis, just for being himself.

After a good half hour of bitching and moaning about the ridiculousness of the evening’s events, we decided that we couldn’t just let this one go. Shaking with laughter, we brainstormed about all the horrible, embarrassing, cruel, and hysterical things we could do to him. The vote was unanimous on forking him.

FORK vb 1: to shove numerous plastic forks, prongs down, into the ground, usually a field or lawn; a common prank

The good girls were going to break their mold and be badass for a night. We couldn’t have been more proud of ourselves. Planning ensued.

“We do realize that his mom will probably end up picking them all out of the lawn, don’t we?” I said.

“She’s cool; she won’t get mad. But never mind his mom; my mom will be wicked mad if I take all her forks and get them dirty. How are we supposed to get the forks back anyway?” asked Darah.

Darah•Wilson n 1: embodiment of brilliant stupidity and naïve maturity 2: silly, outgoing goofball

“Plastic forks, Darah. Plastic forks.” I could barely get the words out through my laughter.

The plan: Friday night. Darah’s house. 7:00 p.m. We were giddy all week. Smirks crept onto our faces every time we saw Logan in the halls at school. (I’m sure he found a way to misconstrue this extra attention in order to augment his already robust ego.) Friday couldn’t come soon enough.

Obviously, Friday came. The four of us piled into my car and drove to the local supermarket. It was going to take millions of forks to cover his vast expanse of a lawn. I grabbed a basket and we strode confidently to the plastic-ware aisle. In one sweeping motion, Ashley cleared the shelf of plastic forks, as if she were on “Super Market Sweep.”

Ashley•Warren n 1: crazed lunatic 2: fun incarnate 3: humorous, enthusiastic, high energy spreader of happiness, cheer, and comfort

We must have bought thirty dollars’ worth of plastic forks that night. Being the rebels that we were, we divided the forks up evenly amongst ourselves and placed them in plastic bags. Efficiency was important to us. We only wanted to be rebellious if we didn’t get caught. Time ticked by slowly. We were all dressed up with nowhere to go. Shrouded in black sweatshirts, bag-o-forks in hand, we finally snuck out the door and got into the car at 2:00 a.m. We didn’t break 30mph. Pumped up with adrenaline, we sang along with the radio at the top of our lungs the whole way there. Logan’s street loomed ahead of us. Lights and radio off. Down to 5mph. Stealth mode.

In attempts at silence, we slid out of the car, leaving the doors ajar for a quick and easy getaway. Leaves and twigs crunched under our feet as we slipped up the side of the yard. Stifled giggles mingled into the noise of our shoes on the earth.

“Wait!” I said. “What if he has a motion sensor?”

“That would suck!” Darah exclaimed, as if the sucking hadn’t occurred to the rest of us.

“Kelly, go run across the yard,” said Ashley.

“No way! You go.”

“Just go, Kel.”

She reluctantly put down her bag-o-forks and sent herself flailing across the grass. She leapt and twirled and ran, giggling all the while.

Kelly•Lombardo n 1: shy, quiet, self-unaware paragon of natural beauty 2: fun-loving, easy going, selfless companion

There was no motion sensor. As if lining up for a race, we all squatted in position, forks in hand, hearts racing. The race began. Kelly stuck to the garden, decoratively placing forks in between the flowers and shrubs. Ashley kept stabbing the ground too hard and breaking the forks. Darah couldn’t stop laughing long enough to put any in the ground, which made Kelly laugh too. I was at once shaking with nervousness and gleaming with pride as I drove fork after fork into Logan’s lawn, working myself out towards the street. It’s a wonder we didn’t wake anyone up. The rustling plastic bags and spouts of laughter, not to mention our attempts to shut each other up, were far from quiet.

We put over a thousand forks in his yard that night. None of us had ever laughed as hard as we did on the drive home. Our anger had been avenged. Victory was ours. And an anonymous victory at that. ADC unknowingly hung out with their archenemies, the self-titled “forkettes,” the next night.

“I don’t think he knows it was us,” Kelly whispered.

We giggled at the thought of our success.

“Let’s do it again,” suggested Ashley a few weeks later.

We did. The thrill had not died down. Our hearts raced with excitement just as much the second time as they had the first. A little while after that we hit every member of ADC. Our cars were soon covered with a black, unidentifiable, cling-wrap type substance. Statements like “fork you” and “don’t fork with us” were duct taped onto our hoods. Clever. Very clever. The tension mounted. A full-fledged war between ADC and the forkettes had begun. However, complete ambivalence was both sides’ best weapon. The protocol after each incident was the same: act innocent and lie.

“Hey guys,” Kelly said as she passed the boys in the hall that Monday. “What’d you do this weekend?”

“Nothing. You?”

“Nothing.”

We both knew very well what the other had done that weekend. We weren’t anonymous (we probably never were), but neither were they. For some reason we all just pretended we were. We liked it better that way.