Skanking

Back in the day, when I was a teenager in the suburbs, underage and under-entertained, we had to make our own fun on Friday nights. Sometimes this meant going to TJ Maxx with a disposable camera and taking pictures of each other in the ugliest outfits we could find.
Or going to Bradlees (the Walmart of the times) and raiding the bargain music bin for the most awesomely bad hits to add to our Friday Night Cruising mix (because we had to listen to something as we hit up all these rad locations), like the classics of New Wave, Give Happy Head's Atomic Candy and Wave That Breaks Forever. Seriously, this is some amazingly ridonculous stuff.
Or going over to where the guys were having a sleep over and peeking in at them watching porn (and someone will have to explain to me why teenage boys watch porn in a group together, how is that not kinda uncomfortable?). And then just for fun, riling up the dog, so it keeps barking and spoiling the dialog for them by leaving messages written in dog biscuits and red vines on the hoods of their cars. Like I said, it was a small town.
But sometimes the thrill of these silly escapades wasn't quite enough to keep us going. That's when we decided to go skanking. Being underage in a small town meant we couldn't get into any clubs or bars or anything, there was literally no where but a bowling ally we could have gone to hang out. No, that's not entirely true, we could have hung with the cool kids at the Mobil Station in town. Exactly.
So, a couple of us girls got dressed up in our mini skirts and belly shirts and heels, put on our make up and did our hair, basically made ourselves look ready for the frat parties we had another year or two before we could attend, piled into my Acura, turned up the Friday Night Cruising Mix, and went skanking, driving around the local area, flirting with guys at red lights in other cars, and feeling hot in our skankiest ensembles.
On one of these occasions, I was driving us through town and stopped at a stop sign at the top of a hill before turning left. A cop car was coming from the right, but put on his signal to turn off, so I made my turn. Boom, he suddenly decided to go straight, lights and sirens on behind us. Now, I wish I could tell you I hit the gas and we fled to hide out in some seedy bar until the heat tapered off. But no, I pulled over, rolled down the window, and greeted the (male) officer with a friendly smile. He asked if I saw him coming, I told him I saw him signal, and he took my licence and registration back to his car, while us girls giggled in ours. He came back, gave me a warning to be safe, a smile, and let us go. No joke.
I think I may go listen to some Happy Head and relive the good days.