Don't judge me by how I treated my cats

My childhood cats were nuts, and I think I have an idea why.


It’s because my twin sister, Joy, and I didn’t play nice with them.

When we were seven years old, we thought it would be funny to put our cat, Elizabeth, in the refrigerator. (JUST FOR A SECOND, Y’ALL).

The point was to play a joke on our mom. We sat at the kitchen table, muffling our laugher as we called our mom into the room.

“Mom…(bahahhaa)…could you (bahahahha) get us something to drink?” we asked.

“What?”

“We'd like some…(bahahahhaha) MILK.”

Our mom opened the fridge and screamed, “OH JESUS CHRIST!” when she saw the black cat on the top shelf, meowing.
Maybe she even slammed the fridge door in Elizabeth’s face out of instinct.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU GIRLS??” our mom demanded, once she shooed Elizabeth out of the icebox.

“Bahahahahahahaha!” we howled.

Elizabeth hid for a week in the laundry room after that.

Maybe it’s not surprising, then, that our other cat -- and Elizabeth’s brother, Hobbes -- went missing for three months and then came wandering back one day like nothing had happened. I don't think he missed us.

He was hungry when he returned, but he looked the same – no scratches or massive weight loss or anything.

He was never one to sit on laps or enjoy being pet for extended periods of time.

That is, until he went missing for the second time following Hurricane Katrina. My parents found him dehydrated and nursed him back to life and after that he was super grateful, and started sitting on their laps.

My dad said he must have eaten some humble pie.

But, I wasn’t very nice to Hobbes, either. I remember in elementary school my friend and I used him in a fake “commercial” we had to perform in front of the class.

We were told we could bring props and somehow we thought it was a great idea to bring Hobbes to class and perform a commercial for cat food.

I can’t remember if it was my mom or the babysitter who brought Hobbes TO THE SCHOOL at noon on a weekday in a cat carrier.

And if that wasn't traumatizing enough for a cat, I deliberately starved him for a day, just to make sure he would go crazy for the Fancy Fest food like our commercial said he would.

It was the only way to ensure we got an A.

Both Hobbes and Elizabeth ate nothing but dry Science Diet food (which I'm sure is why they both lived well past age 17), so wet canned food of any kind was a treat in itself.

Factor in FANCY FEST wet canned food and a day-long (unwanted) hunger strike, and Hobbes went to town on the bowl of food once he was released from the carrier.

He didn’t even glance at the 30 kids and teacher staring at him, he went straight for the food. It was probably the best meal of his life.

The Science Diet worked wonders. It even turned the backyard raccoon’s fur coat shiny and nails long.

Joy and I would deliberately leave the food out on the back porch so we could watch the raccoons eat it through the window, fascinated with nature.

(We never considered that the raccoons could have eaten Hobbes or Elizabeth, or at the very least scrached their eyes out.)

Elizabeth was always my favorite, even though Hobbes was supposed to be my cat that I chose out of the litter of kittens that were in a box behind our gymnastics class building.

It turns out Hobbes had other interests, like playing outside in the grass instead of inside (the refrigerator). He ended up taking a liking to our brother over us.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, our parents left Hobbes and Elizabeth (age 16) in our house, because no one knew the city would flood and no one expected to be away for more than a week.

In an involved process, in which my parents POSED AS ELECTRICIANS to sneak back into the city early to rescue the cats, they found Elizabeth dehydrated and scared under their bed.

Once Elizabeth was revived, I was charged with taking care of her in South Carolina, where I had been living since high school, because my parents were renting an apartment in Baton Rouge that didn’t allow cats.

(Joy, who was also in Baton Rouge at the time, already lived with a cat, and that cat didn’t want company.)

I remember it was odd having my childhood pet in my adult world halfway across the country. She stared at me a lot.
What was I supposed to do with her? What if she didn’t like me?

My friend pointed out that Elizabeth was almost like my sister, since I had first gotten her when I was seven, and was 22 at the time.

Elizabeth and I quickly rekindled our friendship so much that when my parents moved back to New Orleans six months later and offered to take her back, I said no.

I figured she'd be miserable because my parents wouldn’t let her sleep in their bed. And they wouldn’t have bought her a pink collar with diamonds (which she LOVED) or switched her diet to wet food because it tastes better.

And I figured I owed her one.

Joy took care of Elizabeth with me when she moved to South Carolina a year later. We fully involved her in our lives, even bringing her out as a special guest during house parties.

When Elizabeth got dementia at age 20 and started howling at the wall, we got her a prescription for liquid valium and mixed it in her wet food daily. (And we forbid our friends from trying it themselves. No, Elizabeth needs it, we said.)

We ended up having to put Elizabeth down almost two years ago at age 20, which is the oldest cat I know of in real life. I considered storing her body in the fridge.
Just kidding.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

There is no good way to break up with someone, but Kevin brought it to a whole new level.

Sure, he seemed perfect when Mary met him. He had a full-time job, he was ridiculously athletic, and even though he was slightly better-looking from the neck down (a male butterface!!!) he wasn’t ugly by any means.

At least on the surface.

Things started going downhill almost from the beginning.

After a month of dating, Mary was pretty sure Kevin was still regularly talking to his ex-girlfriend long-distance in Georgia, based on repeated unexplained late-night calls and some strategic MySpace stalking. (circa 2003)

Kevin said he could never hang out after 9 p.m. during the week because he hit the gym in the wee morning hours and he was considering entering into a bodybuilding competition complete with fake orange lube tanner.

Mary tried hard to get into his spirit of hard work and athleticism, and for a few weeks Kevin was a pretty promising boyfriend.

He even tried to set some of his friends up with her friends (ummm…EW, btw) but then suddennly his calls to her became less and less frequent. Mary grew suspicious.

This was about the same time he started to make more “business trips” to Georgia.

But, Valentine’s Day was approaching and Mary got her hopes up that Kevin would step it up and buy her something. No dice.

Kevin forgot about the holiday. He told her so two days later, when he finally called her back.

I remember telling Mary not to go over to his house anymore after that, but to no avail. What guy remembers Valentine’s Day? Mary reasoned. And, besides, HE’S GOT A SIX-PACK.

Not even that was enough to excuse the VALENTINE’S DAY CARD Mary found on his kitchen counter. A quick peek inside confirmed that ah, it was from his ex-girlfriend who Mary wasn’t supposed to know about in real life.

“I thought you forgot it was Valentine’s Day?” Mary asked, motioning to the card.
Kevin ignored her.

On the drive home (at promptly 9 p.m.), Mary vowed to have a talk with him the very next weekend. Enough was enough. She decided to gather her thoughts for a full-on CONFRONTATION. She felt empowered. Clear-headed.

She went over things she really wanted to say. Such as: “I know you’re dating someone in Georgia! And, you’re an asshole.”
Or:“Why don't you take take that cheesy Valentine’s Day card and shove it up your ASS while doing squat thrusts??”

Unfortunately, before any of these lines could be perfected, Mary got a phone call from her best friend Tara early Saturday morning. Tara had seen Kevin very drunk at an oyster roast (google it) the night before.

“Have you talked to Kevin lately?” Tara asked, trying to tread lightly.

“No, but he’s supposed to call me today. Why?” Mary asked.

“Because, last night at the oyster roast he told me that you and he had broken up.”

“WHAT?” Mary asked.

“Yea, he seemed surprised that I didn’t know, “Tara said. “He was also really, really drunk.”

“Oh, so we’re broken up now?” Mary said. She suddenly had the urge to check MySpace.

“I don’t know. That’s what he said,” Tara answered. “I’m sorry. He’s an asshole."

One minute later, Kevin picked up the phone to Mary's call.

“HEY!” Mary shouted “Do you remember seeing Tara at that oyster roast last night?”

“Yea, I was pretty drunk though.”

“Do you also remember telling her we broke up?”

“No.”

“Well, she remembers you saying that.”

“She’s lying,” Kevin said.

“Why would my friend lie?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Because you were drunk and were running your mouth and you’re dating someone else and you think I'm too stupid to notice.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Kevin said. “But, yea, we’re broken up.”

Mary yelled something along the lines of, “HAVE FUN PAINTING YOU DI*K ORANGE!!!!”
and then hung up, furious that she put up with his bad behavior for so long and embarrassed that she was broken up with through her friend.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to people in their mid-20s! What is this, high school? Mary thought.

She deleted him from MySpace immediately.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Did I read the Match.com commercial right when it said one in five relationships start online? Really?? One in five??

That seems high to me, considering all of the horrible stories I’ve heard about meeting someone online.
(I’m sure the remaining four out of five people never see each other again after the first date.)

My friend Ashley had one of the worst first dates I’ve ever heard of with someone she met online.
(Wait, let me clarify…one of the worst first dates that didn’t result in anything traumatic or violent à la Craig’s List killer.)

Alan didn’t violate her, but he was completely unsanitary and odd, and after a horrible picnic in the park, we now refer to him as “mayonaise fingers.”

First of all, Alan looked nothing like his online dating profile picture. He was way older. And he wore a white undershirt and black socks pulled up to his knees, and it was summer.
He was also 20 minutes late and she had to wait for him in the hot sun.

Alan lived in North Carolina and Ashley lived in South Carolina, but there was a big city about an hour-and-a-half between them that had a zoo, and they agreed to meet at the park and then go see the caged animals afterwards.

You’d think that since Alan was the one who suggested they go on a picnic, that he would, you know, KNOW HOW TO PROPERLY PACK A COOLER.

Instead of a nicely-portioned wedge of cheese and crackers, or a fruit plate or, at the very least an unopened bag of chips, Alan asked Ashley to help him haul an industrial-sized cooler out to the park filled with what Ashley described as, “everything that must have been in his fridge.”

And this was not newly purchased food either.

There were half-loaves of bread, two slices of cheese, half-empty containers of mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, relish and grey-ish meat.

It was ten times too much food for just two people, and it was just very bizarre. Would it kill him to get some Subway sandwiches?
She politely took the two slices of cheese, wondering when he originally purchased it.

She observed Alan make a sandwich and saw that he was trying to open the mayonnaise jar. Perhaps it was sealed shut from neglect and its two-month old expiration date.)

Ashley saw the jar and then noticed that in the unnecessarily large cooler, there were no utensils.
“How are you going to put mayonnaise on your sandwich?” Ashley asked. “You don’t have any knives.”

He smiled ¬– shudder – and then stuck his index finger into the old jar of mayonnaise and smeared it on the bread.

And then he told her that he couldn’t afford the admission to the zoo.

Ashley faked a stomach ache (must have been the cheese) and drove the hour-and-a-half home, disgusted, thinking about the mayonnaise, and his yellowy mayonnaise fingers.

He emailed her soon after saying he could TELL that she wasn’t into him, but if he was wrong, he’d be willing to try a date again.

She never called him again. Or ate condiments again.

Can you imagine how gross his keyboard computer must be?

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

After four coffee shop dates, Stephen told me that he didn't want to see me anymore because I drink alcohol, dance and don’t go to church.

I suppose his preference for someone WAY less fun than me (kidding. sort of.) doesn’t make him a toolbag per se, but the way he did it was just rude.

Stephen and I met at a town council meeting. I was there covering it for the newspaper and he was there as a concerned appraiser opposing a ban on large “McMansion” rental houses.

Granted, when we met, I wasn’t drinking and we were in a church (where the meeting was held) but, I did tell him I was from New Orleans so that should have given him a clue about my interest in alcohol.

We exchanged business cards (“in case you need me for a quote,” he said.) Stephen called me the very next day and asked me out for coffee.

If he had asked me if I liked coffee, I would have told him NO, and suggested a better meeting spot, like the park.

But he seemed excited about the date so I suffered through an iced chai tea that was too sweet, and sat in an overstuffed chair.

Stephen was good-looking, from South Carolina originally but lived in New York for a few years. He dabbled in acting and had a guest spot on an episode of Dawson’s Creek.

“Oh my God I love that show!” I exclaimed. I actually remembered the episode he was talking about. Joey Potter rules!

Stephen said he had a videotape of the episode somewhere and we should watch it together. “What are you doing later this weekend?” he asked. “We should hang out again.”

Two more consecutive coffee dates, (even though I never actually ordered coffee) we finally moved on to a lunch date.

It was only memorable because it was on a Monday, a holiday, and we both had to work that day. (The news never sleeps, people!!)

We had a nice talk on the phone the night before and agreed that lunch would be the best way to make the day not completely horrible while everyone else was at the beach.

Stephen made me laugh in a quirky way and I really wanted to see him in that Dawson’s Creek episode. I was looking forward to lunch.

That is, until I found out that his lunch spot of choice was rather…old. Like, Jell-O for dessert and early bird specials.

It seemed like an odd choice since there were a ton of trendy “young people” restaurants in the downtown area, and we were both 22 years old.

And at least one of us (me) was cool.

Even though I cringed (to myself) at his lunch spot suggestion, I didn’t argue because he seemed really excited that I hadn’t eaten there before and said the food was amazing.
(It was OK, if you’re into meatloaf.)

At lunch, we both complained lightheartedly about having to work on the holiday, and talked about other normal things and then he asked me what I did that past weekend.

(Does he want to know where I hang out so we can hang out together next weekend???)

I told him about my Saturday night, saying I had heard and enjoyed a really fun band at a restaurant/bar. (I didn’t mention that I also did several vodka shots with a friend from out of town.)

“You were dancing?” he asked. “Do you like to dance?”
“Uh, yea, who doesn’t like to dance?” I said, rhetorically.

“Are you a good dancer?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said. “A beer or two makes me dance better, though.” (Or five.)

“Oh,” Stephen said. “I’m not really into that.”

I shrugged and pushed cottage cheese around my plate.

The next day, Stephen asked me out for coffee again, which was getting pretty freaking monotonous. This time, however, he didn’t pay for my overpriced Chai Tea, and sat in the overstuffed chair looking concerned.

(He was also wearing really ugly bright red sneakers, I remember that distinctly.)

“Look,” he said after letting me buy a $5 tea and then sitting down next to him. “I don’t think we can see each other anymore.”

“What?”
“I can’t go out with someone who drinks alcohol.”

“WHAT?” I repeated. “But, I haven’t…drank…alcohol…in front of you.”

“I know, but you said you had a few beers (ahem, five) the other night,” Stephen said. “And, you were dancing to music, and I really can’t go out with someone who thinks that stuff is fun.”

“You don’t think dancing is fun?” I asked, embarrassed for some reason, feeling like a criminal.

Then I added, “Maybe you should have told me that over the phone instead of ask me out again.”

He just sat there. I looked down at his ugly red shoes and suddenly got really angry. Like a bull.

"You know what, that's bullshit!” I said. (get it? huh huh huh)
“The past two weeks, I’ve met you at places I really wasn’t into and I thought we had a good time," I said. "And I still met you here after you said you weren’t into dancing or 'my kind of stuff.'”

I was starting to raise my voice.

“AND… I’ve met you at THIS STUPID COFFEE SHOP FOUR TIMES! AND I HATE COFFEE!”

He sat there and then finally spoke up.

“You also said you were Catholic and you don’t go to church.”

“Church??? We've never even talked about church!!" I said. "You know what? WHAT. EVER.”

I stood up, looking down at him. “I thought we've been having a nice time and I think you’re being really judgemental,” I said.

I left the coffee shop, leaving him and his stupid shoes all alone.

I threw away my full cup of tea before I got to my car and secretly hoped that he saw that.

An hour later, Stephen called.

“I’m sorry. That was really judgemental of me,” he said. “I shouldn’t have assumed that you didn’t drink alcohol. I’d like to go out with you again.”

I felt my pride come back a little, but I was still fuming.

“Well, most people who are 22 years old DO drink,” I said. “You should assume that everyone you meet drinks alcohol.”

I then pointed out, “I’m also from New Orleans.”

“I know,” he said. Then he paused.
“Actually, you know what? I changed my mind again. I don’t think this is going to work out after all.”

He hung up right as I took the Lord’s name in vain.

And then I opened a beer.

-Jenny

Bar trivia

The best bar trivia question I ever heard was, “What female farm animal is called a Jenny?”

“I KNOW THIS!!” I shouted. (Like I haven’t Googled my own name.)

Smiling, I took a piece of paper from the middle of the table and wrote the word “DONKEY” on it and raced to turn it in to the trivia host.

It was my moment of glory, even if it was a bit embarrassing.

Hey everyone! If you look up my name in the dictionary you’ll see a picture of a donkey!

But, my name served me well that Friday afternoon. Because, if I wasn’t sitting at the table that day at that very moment, my team wouldn’t have gotten the right answer.

They told me later they would have written “sheep.”

Being the only one to know the right answer is the most gratifying part of bar trivia for me. I like being needed. (I may have insecurity issues, haha)

Unfortunately, no one needed me at bar trivia last week.

It was my first time playing trivia in New Orleans and the only answer I knew, someone else on the team knew, too, so it didn't matter that I knew it.

The question was who played the devil in the movie Bedazzled.

“I KNOW THAT ONE!” I said. “IT’S PROBABLY THE ONLY QUESTION I’LL KNOW!”

Sadly, that was a correct statement. Unlike my vast knowledge of Elizabeth Hurley, the other questions were about Louisiana history and the New Orleans Saints.

“Just put Reggie Bush down for every answer,” I told my friend, Nicole.

Thankfully, our boyfriends were also playing on our team and knew a lot about both the Saints and Louisiana history so our team wasn’t a complete failure.

It wasn't as easy as the bar trivia that my twin sister, Joy, and I used to play after work almost every Friday in South Carolina.

We’d send mass text messages to our friends asking them to join us. (Especially our geology friends, history buff friends and sports fanatic friends. They were useful.)

Usually, we’d get drunk less smart by the time the game ended, and never actually won the first place $30 bar tab prize.

(Once, I was in a three-way tie for second place and needed to chug and entire PBR the fastest, and got more on my shirt than in my mouth. Uh, loser.)

In the grand scheme of bar trivia, the one in South Carolina was the easiest I've ever played.
Rather than ask political questions or sports draft pick questions, they had a popular “either/or” category, where the host would say a name, and you’d have to guess if it was the name of a My Little Pony or a porn star.

(Hint: The ones that sound like porn star names are really My Little Pony names. Like Cherries Jubilee.)

But, there were no pony/porn star names at the trivia in New Orleans, which was unfortunate.

Also unfortunate? That my boyfriend had to see that I had NO BRAINS WHATSOEVER when it comes to reciting our state’s history.

Actually, I don't have brains when it comes to any kind of history.

(What exactly was the Battle of the Bulge?? Wait, I thought we were off porn star names. haha Earmuffs mom.)

I've actually learned quite a few things from bar trivia. Tons and tons of useless knowledge I have stored away until I'm asked to recite it again. The movie quotes, the Boys II Men album names, the Saved By the Bell Trivia.
I'm really hoping it comes in handy one day.

such as:

- the cult people that all drank the funny kool-aid in Waco, Texas wore NIKES

- The largest Swiss army knife has 225 tools

- Passion fruit makes a New Orleans hurricane cocktail red

- When the hockey puck goes across the ice without anyone touching it, it’s called icing (not “table scratch,” which was my drunk less smart guess)

- Pinkie Pie is a My Little Pony.



-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

There was no denying that Mark was hot.

He was a surfer, with the accompanying abdominal muscles and bleached blonde hair.
He worked at a popular coffee shop near our college campus and girls would line up to order drinks, even if they didn’t like coffee. He was funny, charming and talkative.

He was also in high school.

But, he didn’t mention that last part to my college roommate, Samantha, until three months into their relationship.

(You’d think the fact that he was in high school would be a deal breaker, but no, Samantha stayed with him for almost a year, did his chemistry homework and even WENT TO HIS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION.) haha

Mark lied to Samantha when they first met, saying he already graduated from high school and was taking “a year or two” off to surf and save money. Samantha was a sophomore in college, and lived off-campus.

Samantha and I had just moved into our first real apartment (not a dorm) and we were 800 miles away from our hometown and high school was a distant memory.

We never considered that anyone we hung out with was in high school, since we were so old and grown up and Mark certainly didn’t scream “high school.”

He lived with his dad, who was totally cool with him staying over at his girlfriend’s house (what!!), he was practically a manager at the coffee shop and he had lots of college-age friends.

He also had a fake I.D. (as did we) and he’d hang out at bars all night.

On weeknights he spent the night with Samantha, Mark would get up at 7 a.m. to “go surfing,” which didn’t seem out of ordinary.
(Surfing was a good excuse, since he was really going to homeroom.)

Samantha soon became suspicious when Mark wouldn’t meet her for lunch during the week.
“I have a break between my classes,” Samantha would text him. “Want to grab a bite downtown?”

He wouldn’t respond, or he’d say he was at his house sleeping, or that he was tired from serving all those coffee drinks.

“He’s cheating on me!” Samantha told me one day, after several weeks of being blown off. “He NEVER hangs out with me during the week! I bet he’s hanging out with somebody else!” (Like his math teacher.)

“Well, he sleeps over here every night!” I pointed out. “He gets up early to go surfing, I’d be sleeping all day, too!”

(I don’t know why I give people the benefit of the doubt. Mark had me fooled, too.)

“But he NEVER calls me during the day! He won’t return my calls!”
She was insecure about how good-looking he was, and saw girls bat their eyes at him, and she was convinced he was up to no good.

After Samantha's fourth freakout, I told her to ask Mark what was going on.

Yet, like many girls (um, guilty), her tone was more accusatory than inquisitive.

“ARE YOU CHEATING ON ME? Because you never call me during the day! You NEVER meet me for lunch!”

Mark said no, of course not, that he liked her a lot and has been really happy dating her.

“Then, what’s going on then?” she asked. “Something is going on.”

Mark said yes, something was going on, and that he’d like to take her out that night and explain everything.

Us roommates were very nervous for Samantha when she left that night to meet him.

“What do you think it is??” we all asked when she left. “You think he’s broke and can’t afford to pay for lunch?”
“You think he’s really seeing someone else??”

Samantha came home an hour later frazzled, and dumbfounded.
“He’s in high school,” she said.
Our mouths dropped.
“What??”
“He’s a senior in high school, and that’s why he can’t get lunch during the week.”
“BECAUSE HE’S AT HIGH SCHOOL!??!!!”

All of us, except for Samantha, burst out laughing. We then thought it through.

Ahhh, this makes sense now! The getting up early part. The living with his dad part. The only seeing him after 3 p.m. part.

Before his confession, Mark had brought Samantha out to a romantic spot in the city, overlooking the water. He lightly touched her face, pulling her hair back.
He looked her deep in the eyes and said, sweetly,
“What would you do if I told you I was still in high school?”

WHAAAAAAT!!!!! she said, and got into a coughing fit. She asked him more questions, and then told him that she needed to think for a few days.

I don’t know, maybe it was his incessant calling and apologizing, maybe it was his abs, maybe it was the fact that she liked getting free coffee --- but she forgave him and they stayed together for almost a year.

She met his dad. She went to his graduation. Seriously, he even invited her to prom (they didn’t go).

They broke up soon after he graduated, and he ended up moving away. Perhaps he’s working at another coffee shop somewhere, surfing, pulling girls’ hair off of their faces, looking them deep in the eyes, sweetly saying, “What would you do if I told you I was a toolbag?”

-Jenny

Choir cheating

I was in a choir once, and lip-synced my way right through it.
For two years.

(Successful lip-synching is not just a matter of moving your mouth to the words. You have to also take fake breaths, to fool the director.)

What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to be in the choir in the first place and my singing range is straight up embarassing. But, I had no choice. My middle school and mother forced me into it.

At least my twin sister, Joy, was also forced into it with me.

Everybody in the entire seventh and eighth grade was automatically enrolled in the choir, an unfortunate offshoot of attending a small, private all-girls school.

Like Spanish and math, choir was mandatory unless your parents wrote a letter saying you don’t have to be in it, and our mother would rather die than opt her children out of choir.

She happens to be a good choir singer and had high expectations for us.
If asked, I’m sure she would have joined us on stage in singing a musical adaptation of the poem Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day.

(That song was particularly hard to “fake breathe” to, by the way.)

Since there was no audition process (everybody’s in!!) Joy and I didn’t have to sing solo ever, thank GOD, and we were shuffled into the soprano section for some reason, expected to sing high-pitched notes.

It was positive torture to make everyone join the choir. Singing is not something you learn at age 13, like grammar. You're either good or you're not.
And, if you’re a bad singer, practicing for an hour every other week isn’t going to make a difference.

(It didn’t take long for us to find other choir members who were also on board with the lip-synching.)

Despite at least four members of the 30-person choir fake singing, the choir still won all sorts of awards and competitions and we even went to the STATE finals.

We were pretty much riding on the coattails of ten or so girls who could actually sing, and they stood closest to the microphone.
The director asked a lot from those girls, who often had to carry the whole choir by singing Italian sonatas.

Man, did I feel bad for them.

But us fakers didn’t have it easy, either. The "singing" and "breathing" bordered on nerve-wrecking at the STATE competition, where we stood on a stage with spotlights and had to “learn” a new song in 20 minutes.
(Learn how to pretend to be singing, that is...in very uncomfortable white silky blouses and red skirts, blech!)

Fortunately, we were experts at breathing fluctuations by that point, and our cover was never blown. The choir may have even won something that day.

Joy and I transferred to another high school that didn't have a mandatory choir policy and singing in a group was never mentioned again. The silky shirts and red skirts were quickly put in the giveaway pile.

This past Saturday, I saw a choir perform the national anthem at the Saints game (in the dome, y’all!!!!) and I was reminded of the years I used to be a choir member.

I studied the small group of singers on the large screen in the dome and tried to pick out any fake singers/professional “breathers,” but I didn’t find any. Perhaps it’s a dying breed.

The girls didn’t remind me at all of my choir experience. They were talented, confident and happy to be there with a spotlight and microphone.

Granted, their outfits still looked horribly uncomfortable: floor-length velvet green dresses in the middle of summer.

But they got a loud round of applause from the crowd, especially during the crescendo: “for the laaaand of the freeeeeee”
They hit that note perfectly. It was impressive.

I could have fake sung it brilliantly.

-Jenny