30-Week Blog Challenge Week 19: A Fun Memory

I'm back with the Monday blog challenge! The lady in charge is Marie at Mom Gets Real. The questions are right here:

QUESTIONS

And Week 19's prompt is . . .

A FUN MEMORY!

Okay! So let's go back to when I was in college.

When I was eighteen, I moved to another city in the same state so I could go to the University of Florida. Being that I'd moved away from home for the first time and was living on my own--and making my own choices--I was exercising my independence in many ways, and one of those was doing my hair in styles my mom wouldn't have let me out of the house with in high school. (Sometimes she used to even forbid me to wear my hair in two braids, claiming it made me look like a little child. The extent of my rebellion at that point was to braid my hair on the bus so she wouldn't see it. I know, REBEL!) In the first few months living on my own, I liked a style that involved 72 multicolored rubber bands separating my three-foot-long hair into eighteen little ropes.

New students were required to attend an orientation, so I went, wearing my new favorite hairstyle. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was spotted and dubbed "interesting" by another girl at the orientation. In fact, as she later told me, I appeared to be "the only interesting person in the room." She decided then and there that we should be friends.

On the first day of Musical Styles, I walked into the classroom and saw someone signaling to me as if we knew each other. Okay, I thought. Maybe I know her? But when I sat next to her, it became clear that we hadn't met before so much as sort of recognized something about each other. She was basically the only other weirdo in the class. And we'd found each other.

Partners In Bizarre: Julie and Jessica

That was a year of High Weirdness. Sometimes she would come up to me and make turkey noises. We would climb on the roof of the library and eat lunch. We would make strange blue men out of clay, give them pebbles for heads, and hide them around the music building (at one point convincing the instrument manager guy that the clay men were stalking him--so we began to write threatening notes from the blue men, telling the guy that they were "watching him").

We had an annoying classmate who always seemed to be talking too loudly, and we didn't like him because of his bro-ish tendencies, so we began to draw horrible pictures of us doing bad things to him.

One of the tamer drawings involved
playing baseball with his head.

Sometimes the drawings were pretty graphic.
Her bird was often featured eating parts of the guy.

Many minor pranks and silliness ensued that year and through the rest of our college career (even though we both changed majors). We had a Bad Movies party. We made Doom Cupcakes for Halloween (cupcakes decorated to have terrible messages on them). We baked cookies in dirty shapes and took pictures of our friends eating them. We became fascinated with the mournful sound my alarm clock made if you unplugged it while it was going off. We took turns lying on each other in a circle of friends and laughing. (It's called a ha-ha circle. It's hard not to laugh if someone else's belly is going up and down under you, so the vicious cycle perpetuates itself.)

We're gone.

But one of our most epic pranks was the Blue Octagon Prank.

One day, when Jessica was visiting me, we decided it would be fun to mess with people's minds, and we developed a plot to deliver cryptic messages through plastic Easter eggs. The messages would include an e-mail address for people to contact us with. We were hoping to generate weird mail and enjoy further messing with our victims.

The message we wrote in red ink on multiple pieces of paper hidden in Easter eggs:

The Egg has chosen you.

* Have you ever seen the future in dreams?
* Do you often perceive things that others cannot sense?
* Are you sometimes convinced that you are not fulfilling your destiny?

We may have the answers.


We made an e-mail address to contact "THE BLUE OCTAGON," and painted a series of coded shapes on the papers so we would be able to track them and figure out where people had found them. We then hid them all over our campus.

The next morning, WE HAD AN E-MAIL!

Subject: the egg

Hi, I found an egg. What is it about? Best wishes.
-J.H. 

So we answered them.

We are glad the Egg found you.

There was a symbol painted on the outside of your message; could you please describe it?

We are interested in your feelings about the questions inside the Egg. Do you relate to the situations presented in the message? We would like to hear about your experiences. We are trying to find others like ourselves.

Chloe Aradia
BlueOctagon

Obviously the idea was to be as off the wall as possible.

We received some other messages too. Here's another one:

Subject: I have been chosen

The egg has chosen me. I knew it would happen. Give me the answers I seek.
-Red Square

I love it! So we wrote to Red Square:

We are glad the Egg found you.

You signed your e-mail "Red Square"--could it be that a red square decorated the outside of your message? If so, congratulations! If not . . . could you please enlighten us as to what shape chose you?

We are interested in your feelings about the questions inside the Egg. Do you relate to the situations presented in the message? We are quite keen on attempting to track down the others who, like us, have mastered the world of dreams and are currently pinning down what could be the most important destiny to grace the history books. We would like to hear about your experiences. Based on your reply, we may welcome you to the fold. . . .

Chloe Aradia
BlueOctagon

And yet another person contacted us, though this one was, well, weirder:

Subject: fulfillment of prophecies

Yes my brother, I do forsee the future and feel as if my progress is being thwarted by the machine. This must end. WE have the answers, revolution starts with us.
!

We can't have someone out-weirding us. Additional weirdness, increased a notch, was sent in response:

We are glad the Egg found you.

Thank you for your enthusiastic e-mail! Though we are more interested in ruling another dimension than this one, your ideas of revolution sound fascinating. Do tell us, what symbol anointed the outside of your message? Depending on what symbol chose you, you may already be one of our leaders. Praise!

Also, feel free to expound on your feelings about the questions inside the Egg. You have touched on seeing the future but we'd like to hear specifics! We, after all, are willing to share with you our "answers": Our methods, our tools, our revelations. Your being accepted into the fold is contingent upon your reply . . . of course, we cannot accept just anyone who calls us "Brother." (We, after all, are not just one brother, but siblings, you know . . . )

Chloe Aradia
BlueOctagon

We thought that was all we were going to get, but we received another one about three weeks later.

Subject: Kamayamaya

^^æ You lò§ e ån egg????

An appropriately weird response was sent:

We are glad the Egg has found you.

No, we did not "lose" the Egg. We sent it on a quest, and now that you have found each other, the real quest begins.

Please let us know what you thought of the questions contained in the Egg's message, and enlighten us as to what symbol decorated the outside of the message. This is very important.

Chloe Aradia
BlueOctagon

And believe it or not, we got one even farther in the future, more than a month after we'd hidden the eggs:

Subject: I have been chosen....

I beleive that the egg has found me.. What shall I do? What adventures am I now able to embark upon.. enlighten me

We sent them the same response we'd sent to one of the others, and then more than another month later the person finally responded:

Subject: Re: I have been chosen....


Oh my g, hello. It has been quite awhile since I have checked my email. I do not remember the symbol on the egg, but if I can retrive it, I will let you know. Thank you

THE INSOLENT WHELP DOES NOT APPRECIATE THE GRAND OPPORTUNITY OFFERED! THE INSOLENT WHELP MUST BE PUNISHED!

Our response was pretty bizarre.

Dear False Prophet,

In your last mail, you say "Oh my g." WHO IS THIS G of whom you speak? And why is he/she/it more important to you than answering our sacred e-mail? We are surprised that an honor such as the one bestowed upon you was not more of a priority in your life. The fact that we have waited over two months for a response from you is proof that you are not suited for the destiny we had planned for you. If you no longer had computer access for some reason, you could have easily sent us a telepathic message; and if you DID have computer access and were simply ignoring us, then . . . may this "g" have mercy upon your soul. You will never know how much you have lost.

Chloe Aradia
Blue Octagon

Yep.

My sister and I repeated this prank in the future but that is another story.

Jessica moved away, got married, split up, moved across the country, and got married again. I don't talk to her much these days, and have no idea if we'll ever sow the seeds of weirdness together in person again. But she's always the person I share the weirdest things on the Internet with when I'm posting stuff on Facebook, and she always seems to be able to appreciate it like in the old days.

I miss those days. But I guess there was a time and a place.