30) The Girl with the Purple Tuba

I have never, nor will I ever again, meet some who makes playing a tuba look cool. She was in the school band, crimson red hair and a nose ring. She was the anomaly to the glasses and acne. The best part was she knew it. She would throw her purple tuba around like it was her dance partner and boss the solos. Everyone would scowl and roll their eyes at her energy, but I smiled like a goof. After watching her perform I would go home and play air tuba to all the guitar solos in my CD collections.

The sad thing was, though she had caught my eye, I never seemed to catch hers. She was in the year above me and there were plenty of more mature guys that she could kill time with than me. I persevered though. I continued going to the shows and each time went to more extreme lengths to be noticed. It started with bumping into her, though that seemed to piss her off when I nearly knocked her precious tuba out of her hand. Next was saying very loudly how I liked a band I knew she definitely liked, though I think she knew I definitely did not like that band as she demanded me to name my favourite song of theirs. I came up blank (ironically, the title of one of their songs). My final trick was dying my hair purple: she ran from the stage to her car and drove off.

And if it had ended there, all would have been fine and good. An embarrassing life lesson well learnt. Except I hadn’t learnt.  I still had hope. I still had her sister; the girl who played the clarinet of doom. Her instrument was named so because the first two shows she ever played it at, an audience member died: one in a car crash on the way home and another of a heart attack in the bathroom at the interval. She was plainer than her sister; a rounded nose with no piercing and mousey brown hair tide neatly into a ponytail. She didn’t play with nearly as much passion as her sister. However, the one thing she did have going for her was that she liked me. I pandered to this, going on walks, watching films and even hand holding. After a couple of weeks of dating, she invited me over to her place.

I’ll fast forward the meeting parents and the description of the double garage driveway and skip to the important parts. First, when purple tuba girl walked in, she was mad. Tears running down her face mad. I was in the living room with her sister at the time watching a quiz show on television with her parents. I sensed an opportunity and excused myself to go to the bathroom.

In my head, this is how this played out: I knocked on her door, she runs into my arms and cries all her problems away, she realises I’m a lovely guy and for my reward we have loud and long sex. I know there are just so many problems with this plan, but I was a horny teenager. Rather than have you shake your heads at me, let me tell you how it played out.

I pressed my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear anything. I knocked and still nothing. Maybe she’s not in? But to see her room would be great. Just a quick peak. Her room was a tip: photos of boys littered everywhere, many skull designed earrings scattered across her desk and… Pants. Actual female underwear.  I WAS A TEENAGER. I picked them up, lacy and black. They felt so soft in my hand. For some reason I had the uncontrollable desire to rub them on my face (STUPID, STUPID TEENAGER) And then a scream. In a towel, back from the bathroom, was the purple tuba girl.

Long story short, I was never allowed back in their house again. Her sister broke up with me and told all her friends I was a cheating pervert, while the guys spread rumours about the naked body I supposedly saw. I didn’t go to anymore band concerts. Purple tuba girl got a scholarship somewhere good and went to play in Italy for a really classy band. She doesn’t have the nose ring anymore. She’s moved on.