Lubbock | Alexa Opal Hamilton

A wise man–or woman–once said that all bad things happen in 3’s. I am here to tell you that bad things can happen in 2’s and be just as traumatizing.

It all happened on one sunny afternoon when my life, not to mention my day, started off full of greatness and potential and was ruined by one man: Vanilla Ice.

Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

My day of Vanilla Fury began one afternoon in “beautiful” Lubbock, Texas. I had driven up for the weekend to visit some friends. They had bought us some tickets for the Saturday Crawfish Boil.

The day started off with all the potential of the government bailout with twice the disappointment.

When my friends and I arrived at the open field that was designated as the official boil area, we had 6 hours of free crawfish and several live bands ahead of us.

I don’t remember what bands came on before these two, but I remember I was really focused on seeing these in particular: Bowling For Soup and Vanilla Ice (born in Texas in case you didn’t know).

When I walked through the gates two things stuck out: slutty 19-year-olds were running loose wearing the standard issue West Texas Skank Uniform of bikini-top, denim shorts, and cowboy hat…..

And the 2nd thing was the fact that the Porta Potty to human ratio was .002 : 1,000.

Regardless, I was with my friends and ready to rock. I entered the Crawfish Boil feeling excited, confident and cool.

We met up with our friends, sat back and drank some beers.

Keystone light was scattered as far as the eye could see. We used to be able to buy a 30 pack of Keystone light from Wal-Mart for 10 dollars, including tax. Two-thousand-and-three baby!

So the hours passed as the unknown bands played. During this period of waiting I did two things that are fine on their own, but in my case, should never be mixed.

I drank and talked to strangers.

So I was dangerously close to needing to go home….when suddenly….

I rushed to the front of the crowd and was able to get to the front row. And not only that, my cool meter shot right back up to a normal range.

At this time, the crowd was still only slowly gathering because Vanilla Ice wasn’t up yet. I took advantage the lack of pro-activity and established my place front and center.

Why I wanted to see V. Ice so badly is beyond me, but for some reason, it seemed critical at the time.

If I had known that a storm of aggression was about to befall upon me from the Van Winkle hate train, I would have chosen my concert seat much more carefully.

So, as Bowling for Soup was finishing up, a crowd began to gather….

And gather….

Pretty soon it started getting tight and crowded. Some security guards came in and stood in the grassy null between us and the stage.

The crowd behind me was starting to get a bit rough. I suppose it was from the Miami Fever.

I was starting to get claustrophobic and scared, and it was getting worse and worse by the minute with all the people piling in behind me.

Suddenly, a man came out and laid out an extension of the stage, kind of like a bridge, for Vanilla Ice to stand on so he’d be closer to the audience. And guess who was directly in front of this bridge….

So, a few minutes later……

Vanilla Ice runs out on stage, and the crowd goes insane!!!

They were all jumping around and moshing like white people do instead of dancing.

Anyway, through all this fury, I was getting pushed harder and harder into the railing.

Now, standing next to me was a girl who looked like she was a student of the University. I remember she was itty-bitty, probably like 4′ 7″ and was taking a beating equal to mine.

The crowd was getting more and more rowdy.

They treated me like I was the 1975 piece of latex standing between them and an impregnable stage.

I looked over at my new midget friend and was sorry to see that she was getting it worse than I was.

Then the crowd was pushing me so hard into the fence that I began to panic that I was going to get crushed. The only way out was to climb over the fence. Surely the security guards could see what was happening to me and would help me ou….

Death was upon me. I was sure of it, and quite frankly I would rather die naked on a public toilet than fully clothed at a Vanilla Ice concert.

But suddenly….

V-Ice! V- Ice was coming to my rescue!

Our eyes met, and he could see my despair.

With what little strength I had and with my last breath of life, I reached up to take his hand, and….

He poured an entire bottle of water on my face. He was trying to drown me! I don’t know what possessed him to pour water on people, but in that instance, I had no less than the reaction of a drowning cat.

It was like my hands had turned in to kitty cat paws, feebly clawing at the Dasani of Death.

This place was madness. It was like all that was Western and civilized had been thrown out the window and pure anarchy had taken over.

But then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a new ray of hope appeared. A rather large guy standing behind me must have decided to leave, and was making his way through the crowd.

Like a sucker fish stalking a shark, I knew this could be my break. I could attach to this guy as he parted the crowd and reach safety.

I reached back and tried to bring the short girl I met with me, but she was nowhere to be found.

So I had just escaped Vanilla Ice’s first attempt to try and kill me. After I had at last reached safety (or so I thought), I could only find one of my friends.

And she was making out with some dude.

Whatever. I was just happy to be alive, so I stood by in the least creepy manner possible….

…and watched the concert from the back of the crowd.

At this point, things were going well and my cool meter was slowly gaining some momentum.

This was until a few songs later when the second incident came about.

I swear it was like one minute, VI was was singing, and the next instance…we made eye contact.

He stared at me, and it looked as though he were trying to figure something out in his head. It was like the inside of his brain contained mathematical figures that were being manipulated and analyze.