C.O.M.O

Club Of Members Only. 

Oh, it makes me giggle to think of how brilliant I was in seventh grade.  We, I mean how brilliant we were.

My friend Alyssa and I were inseparable in our middle school years.  We had sleepovers at her house where her dad would make us homemade donuts, we'd swim in their pool for hours, I'd get stung by wasps and my eyes would swell from an allergic reaction to their five cats.

Other days we would spend hours watching our favorite Nickelodeon or FX shows while testing how much Mountain Dew we could drink before we literally started bouncing off the walls...or vomiting.  Whichever came first.

We played soccer together, skied together, trick-or-treated together, joined the 4-H dog club together, we even bought and raised two Golden Retrievers from the same litter together, Lucy and Kestra.  Lucy was mine.

One summer we had the brilliant idea to form a club: the Club Of Members Only.  I suppose we needed a new outlet for our creative energy, and a place to escape her bratty little brother.  In his defense, he was probably that way because I accidently jumped on his head in the pool and almost drowned him once.

So we jumped into this club with full force.  The first order of business was to get organized.  We used an old school 3-ring binder to store all of our notes.  In order to disguise its contents we labeled the binder "C.O.M.O."  Next, we created a secret alphabet only members could understand.  It was a series of dots and dashes and squiggles.  All further documents on rules, conduct, mission statements, and new member initiation rites were written in this code.  And the key was kept in a different location just in case we forgot the code, which Alyssa did.

We were very thorough.

Eventually we decided on a location for our clubhouse: one perfect tree in the wooded lot behind her house.  We drew up blueprints (rectangles on lined paper) and hired a construction team (her dad).

Unfortunately, the summer ended and so did our club.  I think we just lost interest.  Sad, because we had an awesome club song:

Stacie Dina Dipwad is a Dina Dipwad.
Do do do do.  Do do do do.  Do do.  Do do.
B-A-N-G as in Frank, BANG!

Alyssa Hoff Halfwit is a Half Hoffwit.
Do do do do.  Do do do do.  Do do.  Do do.
B-A-N-G as in Frank, BANG!

Sparky (my ferret) is a junior and she does the moon walk.
Do do do do.  Do do do do.  Do do.  Do do.
B-A-N-G as in Frank, BANG!

Dixie (my other dog) is a dog and she sleeps all day.
Do do do do. Do do do do. Do do. Do do.
B-A-N-G as in Frank, BANG!

We were so cool.


Hang on a second...Corey's handing me something. 

Yeah, it's divorce papers.  Apparently that was all he could take.