Auld Lang Syne Y2K

I suppose that I’ve always been kind of boring.

It was December 31, 1999. My idea of partying like it was 1999 consisted of going to Wal-Mart for a frozen pizza, coming back to my two bedroom, on bath castle, baking the pizza, and watching some scary movies I had recently bought on VHS. Sounds like something a middle aged or elderly man would do, doesn’t it?

I was 22 years old.

It was cold that evening. The thermometer on the front porch said 37 degrees. I put on a sweatshirt and my old high school letterman’s jacket (I wrestled two years), and went out to my white bronco to make the 10 minute drive to town and Wal-Mart. I had just climbed into the driver’s seat when I heard a familiar voice calling.

“Teddy! Hey, Teddy!”

The voice was high pitched and twangy. It was my uncle and next door neighbor, Ike. Ike was a tall, lanky scarecrow of an individual who labored under the delusion that we were still living in the 1970’s. His hair was long and grey as it was blown in the wind. He wore a pair of designer jeans that appeared to be a size too small and a buckskin jacket that one would have expected to see Kit Carson wearing in an earlier time. I rolled down the passenger’s side window so I could hear him.

“Hey, what’s up, Uncle Ike?” I asked.

“Listen here, I know you ain’t a takin’ this Y2K stuff serious. I want you to know that I got enough supplies to last a bunch of people for a good, long while. You’re my brother’s son, God rest his soul, and I ain’t gonna let you do without!”

I was amused and touched at the same time. I nodded and smiled.

“Appreciate that,” I said.

“ I reckon it’s a fixin’ to git really bad!” Ike said. His eyes were wide and he was gesturing wildly with his hands. “I listen to Reverend Leviticus Goodnight on Radio Deliverance Church every day. He says this could be the Great Tribulation that the Book of Revelations talks about! I ain’t a churchgoer like your Daddy was, God rest his soul, but I know that’s a bad deal!”

“It sure is!” I admitted as I flashed back to being nine years old and sitting with my parents in an Independent Baptist Church, with the lights off, watching A Thief In the Night. I don’t know if it was the cold air or the memory that made me shiver. There was a wool cap on the passenger seat and I grabbed it and put it on.

I don’t know if it was the cold air or the memory that made me shudder

“I’m going to Wal-Mart,” I said, “You need anything?”

He shook his head.

“No, like I say, I’m pretty well stocked up!”

I backed out of the driveway and headed to Wal-Mart. I turned on the radio and listened to country music as I drove.

When I arrived, the parking lot was nearly full. I drove around for 5 or 10 minutes looking for an empty parking spot. When I finally found one, it was the length of a football field from the front entrance.

I buttoned up my jacket and climbed out of the vehicle. Again, I heard my name being called.

“Teddy? Teddy Wagers? Is that you?”

It was a female’s voice and vaguely familiar. I looked around and finally saw her.

Bobbi Lee Maggard came running toward me. White coat, red scarf, and black wool cap. The first thing my mother had noticed when she met Bobbi was that her clothes never matched. She still had long, blonde hair and a smile that would stop traffic. She had put on a few pounds since I had seen her last, but she was still one of the prettiest girls around here.

She threw her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss of the forehead. My cap caught most of it.

“What you been up to? I haven’t seen you since we went to student orientation at Morehead State!” Bobbi said. Her voice had the accusing tone of a cop asking a pulled over driver about his sobriety, but she was being playful.

“You were supposed to have called me the next day! Four years later and I’m still waitin”!

She laughed and playfully slapped my shoulder.

“You know I was always bad about that kind of stuff! I decided that I was going to NKU and thought you’d be mad at me. We’d always talked about hangin’ out together when we got to college.”

“I looked all over for you the first three weeks of college,” I teased. “Wandered around like a lost puppy!”

“Poor boy!” she said and gave me another quick hug. “Seriously, Ted, how are things going? I was sorry to hear about your parents.”

“Appreciate that,” I said. “Well, I’m doing ok. Went to college for one year. I decided that twelve years of school was all I wanted. Came home. Been working over at Eastern Automotive, making brake pads. I live at my folks’ house. Well, it’s mine now-I got it in the will. Still single.”

I noticed that her face lit up when I told her my marital status.

“ You always seemed to be a blue collar type,” she said. Then, “Are you still doing music?”

“I play piano in a Gospel group and still write songs, mostly Gospel. A few of my songs have been on radio.”

“Nice!”

“How about you?”

“Well, I’m still single, too. I work for the school system. I’m the superintendent’s assistant.”

“You’ve been working two streets over from where I live and I didn’t know it! That’s wild!”

“I am glad we’ve bumped into each other here,” she said. “You here to shop or watch the show?

“Show?” She had confused me.

“Yeah, I just came out, but I’ll go back in with you, if you want me to. It is crazy in there! They actually think there’s gonna be a disaster!”

This was the quirky Bobbi that I remembered. I had been missing her and hadn’t even realized it until that moment.

We hurried into the store and she was right-it was a madhouse.

People scurrying around, pushing carts filled with bottled water, canned goods, bread, and milk. There was a large, well morbidly obese woman, wearing an overcoat over her pajamas. She pushed a cart full of groceries with the latest issue of Cosmopolitan lying neatly on top. She was followed by an equally obese gentleman carrying several packages of toilet paper. Four pudgy little boys followed behind them, each carrying two cases of bottled water. The last kid was probably a first grader and he was struggling mightily to keep his balance.

“Ain’t that a sight?” Bobbi whispered in my ear and I giggled.

“You remember my Uncle Ike?” I asked. She nodded. “Well, he tells me that he’s got enough supplies to keep us both going for a while. If you promise to be good, he might spare a few cans of green beans for you.”

This was an inside joke. Bobbi had always hated green vegetables.

“I came here for a frozen pizza,” I told her.

We walked over to the frozen foods. We had almost reached our destination when I saw Mr. Easybuck.

Mr. Easybuck had been our Math Teacher back in school. Most of had seen the humor of a man with his last name teaching Math. He had been retired for several years. I remember reading an article about his last day in the newspaper. He was pushing a shopping cart down the aisle. Mr. Easybuck hadn’t changed much since high school. Same salt and pepper crewcut, same starched white shirt, and same bowtie. He aslo had the same facial expression. The look of a man who had just bit into a lemon and had been expecting to taste a sweet roll.

“Getting ready for Y2K, sir?” I asked him.

“Bunch of nonsense and ignorance, I tell you! I always tried to teach you kids if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything! You remember Mr. Buxton, the guidance counselor?

Bobbi and I nodded.

“That fool is hiding in a cabin in the mountains in West Virginia!”

I looked at the contents of Mr. Easybuck’s cart. Two packages of ramen noodles, a box of saltines, a bottle of white wine, and a five pound bag of corn meal. Just enough to get him to 2000!

“I have to get out of here!” the old teacher growled. “I wish you a Happy and prosperous New Year!”

“Always such a jolly old soul,” Bobbi said, trying not to giggle.

 “Let’s get my pizza get out of here!” I said, doing my best Mr. Easybuck impression. I had spent four years of my life mocking the man and was pretty good at it.

That set Bobbi off. She giggled uncontrollably. While she giggled, she held onto my arm. I won’t lie. I enjoyed the physical contact.

I enjoyed it a lot.

We found the frozen pizzas. I bought a Tombstone with pepperoni and sausage.

“Nice choice,” Bobbi said.

We headed toward the checkout. We came to a huge display of bottled water. A middle aged couple were there with a shopping cart. The guy was filling the cart with cases of water. When he had filled the cart, he glared at the woman.

“Honey,” he said,”how much more dang water do you reckon we need? The garage is plumb full and this will probably give us stack that touches the ceiling of the basement!”

She looked like she would cry.

“Baby, you know what Brother Goodnight has been sayin’ on the radio!”

The man shook his head. He was overweight and redfaced. I thought he looked like a prime candidate for a heart attack.

“My uncle went to high school with your Brother Goodnight. He says he cheats on his wife and drinks bourbon like we’re gonna be drinkin’ water!”

I felt bad for eavesdropping. I started walking more quickly. We got to the checkout. I paid for my pizza. We walked back out into the cold parking lot.

When we got to my car, Bobbi gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Sure good to see you again, Teddy. We ought to get together again. If we survive to see the new year.”

“Hey, you wanna come over and share this pizza with me?” I asked. I hoped my voice wouldn’t betray how desperately that I wanted her to say yes.

You know, she did say yes. She came over and we cooked the pizza and ate it. We sat on the couch and watched horror movies. Halfway through Scream, we started cuddling. When the clock struck midnight, she kissed me long and hard on the lips.

2000 arrived without a hitch. By the end of January, we were inseparable. By Easter, we were engaged. On December 31, 2000, we were married. Uncle Ike was my best man. I desperately wanted the Reverend Leviticus Goodnight to officiate at the ceremony, but he was on trial for embezzlement and, therefore, unavailable.

Bobbi and me are still going strong. We still watch horror movies, only now on Netflix or Hulu, and eat frozen pizza at least once a week. We go to Wal-Mart and people watch every chance that we get.

I guess we sound kind of boring, but I wouldn’t change anything.