Concert Experience of the Socially Awkward

I WENT TO A CONCERT...

I'm not a big concert goer. I sort of have social anxiety issues around large groups of people, one that I never noticed in my youth due to the copious amounts of booze and small amounts of marijuana-use that accompanied any real concert. When I say small amounts, I mean so small you couldn't arrest me for it. I also mean so small I never actually resorted to cannibalism, unless bacon counts. Oink.

I saw Alanis Morissette back in college, and I went with a girl who looked exactly like Alanis, so after the concert, she signed some autographs.

I saw Jimmy Buffett, by far the best concert I ever went to. I was on a date with some med student who I met at a bar. He was the bartender, and I was the underage kid getting Daiquiris off of him. He eventually realized I wasn't 21.

I also saw Garth Brooks where I not only got a contact buzz from the people smoking in front of me, but I also got the number to my high school quarterback (who might of been color blind because he threw like Tony Romo). Remember I was NOT popular in high school. I never called him because this was after I banged the star quarterback for my college team totally defeating the misfit outcast within me like how tribal guys kill lions with a stick to embrace manhood.

But my turning point was a Phil and Friends concert. I dated this jazz bass player who was a hippy. He had Beethoven hair, hence my attraction to him. But the hippiness was beyond my levels of hippy. One time he took me to a party where everyone was eating all-organic foods and they had a bon fire where they danced around it to some African drums spouting strange animal calls where the "Shaman" threw these powders into the fire to make it change colors, and I brought malt liquor with me, which everyone loved more than Bud Light. I'm more of a drop it like its hot kind of gal. I got One Love here. Ain't nuthin to it, gangsta rap made me do it.

Anyway, he had to go see a Phil and Friends concert and wanted me to go with him. It was brutal. I could already smell the patchouli like 5 miles before the interstate exit. Mind you, every time I smelled Patchouli pregnant, I threw up. I have grown a serious hatred toward Patchouli. I think I hate it more than I hate LED headlights.

I walked the stretch of the parking lot and received like 10 offers for ecstasy, a couple for cocaine, and everyone had weed. It was a hot summer's day, so nobody was really wearing enough clothes, and what little they had on was permeated in sweat. So we get to the concert part, and I was able to relax a little. I really couldn't stand the music, but it was relaxing to be in a seat with a nice personal bubble between me and everyone else.

I don't know if you are aware, but hippies have no concept of a personal bubble. I learned this the hard way when I had to pee. I held it beyond what is humanly possible, but at some point, I had to venture off into the wild, alone, and find the facilities. I couldn't walk 3 feet without someone dancing in circles, off rhythm, with their hands in the air where you can clearly see the sweat dripping off the arm pit hair, on both the men and the women because I guess it wouldn't be hippy of women to shave, and I swear they shoved their arm pits into my face like a stripper shoves her boobs in the face of a private lap dance. I'm not sure if this was their way of saying hi, or if they were just high. But either way, it was the longest walk I ever took. That walk to the bathroom took longer than Dorothy walking to the Wizard.

I was trampled by sweaty armpits and overgrown fungus filled toe nails in sandals. I'm talking trampled. Like the scene in The Lion King where Mufasa passes away. There were thousands of them trying to kill me with patchouli and hemp. When I found refuge in a stinky public bathroom covered in urine and fecal matter, I actually had my first real panic attack.

So now I have a little PTSD from it. Years later, another boyfriend dragged me to a B-52's concert in St. Louis. Not the stratofortress bomber although we were in the Air Force at the time. No the band. Love shack. It's the love shack babyyyyy. Anyway, there I do remember feeling a panic attack coming. So I waited in this long line to go up the stairs to exit the situation for a minute, and the woman in front of me had a stroller with a kid in it, and I picked up the lower half of the stroller and carried that kid up a flight of stairs that makes the stairs in Rocky look rather pathetic, and it was in slow motion instant replay mode because the 50,000 people in front of her didn't understand you have to put one leg in front of the other to move forward, and the whole time, I'm breathing heavy starting to freak out at all the people, and that woman. That mother. She had no flipping clue I was carrying her stroller with her kid in it. Not one clue. She never made eye contact. She never thanked me. She didn't glance back my direction at all, not for a second. When I put the baby down, again, no notice.

That is when I learned why I have social anxiety in a concert. There are no people at these concerts. Just cattle. Mindless mounds of meat wondering about aimlessly waiting on the cowboy to leave so they can venture back into reality. I'm not sorry if you, the reader, are the pronghorn I'm referring to. Y'all tried to kill me several times with your cattle like ways, so we aren't even close to being even. The important thing is you failed at your attempt to assassinate the socially awkward and I forgive you for it. I'm still here, on the internet where I don't have to smell armpits and carry people's babies. The VMA performance was so much better seen alone in my underwear. Now that was a good concert.

P.S. Seriously you won't let people smoke cigarettes at these concerts, but marijuana is ok? Wearing patchouli is ok? I don't understand you people.

P. P. S. I still got to bang the star quarterback. How's that for the socially awkward? Yeah, can't touch this... If you try with your arm pit, I'm going to push you down and say, "Stop trippin." And why? Because whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

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