why i hate debbie gibson

for those of you who may not know me as well as others, i grew up in a town called springfield. if you are my good friend you have probably made springfield jokes with me before. and that's perfectly appropriate because the part of virginia i lived in, was hick to say the least. this was a town where the average age for bearing your first child was sixteen. a town where it was perfectly acceptable to ride horses around the same dirt track at the local middle school that was mecca for such physical fitness feats as the mile run and the forty yard dash. a town where we played bombardment using horse and/or cow paddies (a.k.a. SHIT) as ammo. a town where a man decided to run for mayor and subsequently changed the name of his black lab puppy from "spooky" to "inka" for fear of the losing the votes of the three black people who lived there and probably weren't voting anyway. you get where i am going with this. this place fucking sucked.
i am beyond grateful that when i was twelve my family decided to move to fairfax, a far more civilized place. in the event that i had stayed in springfield, what would i have turned out like today? i would no doubt have a kid or two or three, and probably a minimum wage job at the dairy queen. i would have never had access to the dynamite orthodontic team in burke which transformed my severely bucked teeth into the million dollar smile i have today over the span of five years, had i never moved. frankly, i don't want to think about it. the only good thing that could have possibly resulted from staying in springfield is i would probably be a hell of a horseback rider by now. but really, where does that get you in the real world? to the olympics, and then after that you go back home and rot. so hooray for moving! at any rate, the neighbor i was speaking about before, the one who ran for mayor (and ended up losing), had a son named joel. joel had a mullet and joel was fat. he also had a speech impediment. for instance, our dog's name was kelso, but joel always pronounced it "kasso". my guess is that somewhere along the line, joel's mother fucked her brother or cousin, and that is how the boy came to be. joel was three or four years younger than my sister, sarah who was about seven or eight. because joel lived next door, he and my sister quickly became best friends. they did everything together. and by everything, i mean they compared hotwheels cars and played swords. they were really tight like that, and it was a beautiful thing.it was around this time when colombia house sent my family that beautiful sheet of stamps we all know and love, that presents you with the option of getting 12 free cd's or tapes, ALL FOR THE PRICE OF ONE PENNY! my family went buck nutty with this. yours did too, admit it. it was incredible! everyone was allowed to pick three selections. so i picked what were obviously the best three of all: rick astley (self titled), paula abdul (forever your girl), and debbie gibson (electric youth), all on cassette! from the day we sent out this mailer, i anxiously awaited the arrival of these cassettes. like, they were going to sound so awesome in my red boombox! and the day they finally came was even more exciting. i can still smell the enticing scent of fresh new cassettes when i reflect upon this. i must have spent all day listening to the debbie gibson tape. it was so awesome! and it featured such hits as `out of the blue' and `electric youth'! you just couldn't go wrong! ...or so i thought. soon i was going to learn that you could, in fact, go very very wrong.i had transported the aforementioned red boombox outdoors, so that i could do the illest shit of all: hang out on the swingset AND listen to my new tape! it was enough to make me explode. it took me all of three minutes to set up shop and i was ready to fucking swing and listen to some bitchin' tunes. my sister and joel were outside like they always were. they were doing one of their favorite things: putting a bunch of shit in an empty sandbox we had, pouring water on it, and stirring it up with sticks. kind of like witches around a potion, only more primitive and more pointless. there was a shitload of mud in the sandbox, along with wood chips, leaves, berries, and other delights from the outdoors. my sister and joel were stirring this mixture around really fast. it was getting intense. i could have cared less though. on the swingset with my red boombox blasting the anthems of the eighties debutantes i so longed to be, nothing else mattered to me. occasionally i would look over to where my brother and joel were stirring things up in the sandbox, a few feet away, just to see if they were looking over at me and envying how cool i was. they never were, but i knew within the far reaches of my mind that they were only doing this business with the sandbox because they weren't radical enough to listen to debbie on the swingset. the next thing i knew, i looked over at the two of them, and joel was clutching at his stomach. i guess watching all of that crap mushed together in a circular motion in the sandbox was getting to him or something, because he had turned a faint shade of green. i knew what was going to happen, and it happened alright. joel opened up his mouth and out poured the sickest, most projectile, most melted-orange-cremesicle-esque vomit i have ever seen. and it just kept coming out, coming out, coming out, in more powerful bursts each time. the vomit was now in the sandbox along with all the other muck, as well as all over joel's shirt and shoes. and there was just so much of it! i was utterly disgusted by this and ran inside as fast as i could. to this day, i feel this way about vomit. i want nothing to do with it. if i see it, smell it, or hear it, it's probably coming up in less than thirty seconds. so no thanks. i was terrified and i didn't want to see any more of joel or his puke. i couldn't believe my sister was standing out there just hanging out with the barf! disgusting! i think she was even still stirring the contents of the sandbox as this was happening. what was wrong with her? it was then that it donned on me that i had left my precious red boombox outside, still playing the debbie gibson tape! i had to get it! not that it was close enough to get puked on or anything, but how was i going to continue getting cooler if my boombox was outside with pukers? i ran outside to get it, as fast as i could. by this time, joel was done vomiting, and his mother had come outside to wipe his face with a wet towel. the sandbox, filled with mud and the like, had random splatters of bright orange puke decorating it now. even the aftermath was enough to make me want to yak myself. i retrieved the boombox and ran back inside, but things were different now.when i thought about debbie gibson, or played her songs in my head, all i could envision was joel puking, and how horrible it smelled, and how wretched it was. all i could remember was how unexpected it was and how even though debbie was playing, i could still hear the vomiting, and it was still happening in my yard. from this day on, i have not been able to listen to debbie gibson. whenever she comes up even in conversations, i immediately make the mental connection to orange projectile vomit splattered on mud in a sandbox. i will forever attach the memory of my neighbor having the foulest throw up session in the world with her songs, and then the fear that i too may vomit rises in my soul. whenever i hear her songs, i will always remember this fateful day and how sick it was; how interrupted my total coolfest on the swingset was by my neighbor and my sister stirring up mud in the sandbox and the gruesome effects that it had on joel's stomach. i have never seen more vomit come out of one person in my life, and joel was a little guy. needless to say, this was the last time my sister and joel made concoctions in the sandbox together.and even more needless to say, this was the last time i ever selectively listened to debbie gibson.from this day forward, debbie gibson equals vomit. this is not a memory i wish to replay. not just because of hatred of puke, for i have come to terms with that as the years have passed and drunken nights have occurred. people vomit sometimes, i understand that. it is just the fear, the imagery, and mostly the feeling that i got this night that make me so turned off to debbie gibson. it was the worst night ever and i wish to never reflect on it again.