Dear Diary, I still can’t believe it!! Me, Laurie L., the plainest, most boring girl at Pinole Valley High School, the girl that all the boys bark at when I walk by, the girl whose Mother wouldn’t even let her go to a New Kids On The Block concert because “there’s often a bad element at those rock concerts, dear,” I got to go on a 4 day tour with my total heartthrobs, GREEN DAY!!! Little did I know that when I entered a “Win A Dream Date With Green Day” contest in Tiger Beat magazine (my lame-o brother calls it Puberty Beat, but what does he know, he’s probably a homo anyways) that I, out of all the millions of Green Day fans in America would get picked!!
The day that the letter arrived was the happiest day of my life. But before I could get too excited, I realized that I had a biiiig problem….my parents!!! I knew that they’d never let me go off with a rock band for even one night, let alone 4 days! So for once I decided not to put up with their crap. I wasn’t sure what to do, so at school the next day I went around to all the weirdos and asked them what THEY would do? See, I figure people who have blue mohawks and come to school only when they feel like it and make these gross magazines with naked pictures in them must have figured out a way to handle their parents.
So I went to this guy Eggplant (boy I feel sorry for him, his parents must have really hated him to name him something like that), and he looked at me like, “You really wanna go on tour with Green Day?” And I said, “Oh yeah, I’d DIE to go on tour with Green Day.” He looked at me kind of funny and said, “Yeah, but would you KILL?” I thought he was joking, but I wasn’t sure. Then I looked at his beady little eyes piercing deep into my soul and I KNEW he wasn’t. I thought, hmmm, what the hell, you only go around once, might as well go for it, blah blah, blah…. So I said, kinda hoarse and everything, “Yeah, I guess I would…” And he said, “Then the one you should talk to is Claude.”
OMIGOD!!! Even I had heard of Claude. He’s so evil that he’s practically….SATANIC!!! He dropped out of school in 8th grade, and all he ever does is take drugs and read weird books and molest little girls. I was always afraid to even look at him. But I’d gone too far now to stop.
After school, instead of going home, I went to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley where all the scummy people hang out, and sure enough, there was Claude. He looked all perverted and he was smoking cigarettes and all these girls were standing around him like they wanted him to do bad stuff to them. But they got out of the way when they saw me coming, and Claude wasn’t mean or dirty or anything. He was actually kinda nice. He said, “My friend Eggplant tells me YOU have a problem.” I said, “Two problems, actually. Two really BIG ones.” “Parents, huh? This should take care of em.” He handed me a brown bottle full of pills. “How many of these should I take?” I asked him. He laughed, kind of heh-heh like. “No, you don’t take them, THEY do. Your parents.” “Oh NO,” I said, “My parents wouldn’t take drugs. Their Christian Scientists.” “You look like a smart little girl. I’ll bet you can figure something out.”
And you know what? He was right. I DID! That night, I offered to help my mother make dinner. Then, when she wasn’t looking, I emptied all of Claude’s pills into the mashed potatoes. Then, I said I didn’t feel like eating, and went upstairs and listened to all of my Green Day records 5 or 6 times.
After a while, I stuck my head out the door. “YUCK!” I heard my dad say. “These are the worst mashed potatoes I ever tasted in my life!” “Then cook your own goddam dinner, you lazy scumbag, I’m not your slave.” I was surprised, my mother didn’t usually swear. My dad said, “I’m not going to eat these. They taste like shit!” But my mother yelled at him, “You eat all those potatoes, or I will dump them over your head, and shove the dish up your ass.” “SHHHH” he said. “Laurie will hear you!” “She’s asleep, the stupid little bitch! I swear I don’t see how my daughter could be such an idiot! I bet the babies got switched at the hospital!” “Now, she’s just a little bit slow.” “Yeah, and I wonder who she got it from. Are you gonna eat those potatoes?” My dad always does what mom tells him. I even heard him scraping the bowl.
After a while, I heard a clunk and a crash, and then the whole dining room table fell over. I went downstairs, and they were both flopped out on the floor, like, totally dead. It was weird. I realized that I better do something before my brother got home because I didn’t have enough pills to take care of him too. Luckily, we had a brand new garbage disposal, so I took a butcher knife and cut mom and dad up into little pieces and put them down the garbage. It took a long time, and it was kinda messy, but I kept singing all my favorite Green Day songs, and it made the work easier. The only trouble was, the bones wouldn’t go down the garbage disposal, and now I was getting nervous because my brother would be home any minute. Then I got an idea. I gathered up all the bones and carried them out into the backyard, and threw them over the fence to the neighbor’s pit bull. He was so happy, he didn’t even bark at me.
Then my brother came home. “Where’s mom and dad?” he asked. “Uh….they went to….Utah!” “Utah! Why the hell would they go there?” “Uh, I think they decided to become Mormons or something.” He looked at me kinda weird and went upstairs to look at his porno pictures. I went to my room and started packing my bags!
The next morning, I was at the airport. My own private jet waiting for me there, and you know what, it was all painted GREEN, and on the side of it said “WELCOME ABOARD LAURIE L., GREEN DAY TOUR ’90.” So, I went on the plane, and I was the only passenger! And all the stewardesses just waited on me and they listened to Green Day records all the way to Arizona, where the tour was going to start!
When I got there, there was a limo, GREEN limo of course, waiting for me, and this guy with a top hat opened the door for me, and when I got in the back seat, THERE THEY WERE!!! All three of them, Billie Joe, Mike, and Tre!!! I was so excited I didn’t even know where to sit, I mean, I didn’t know which one of them to sit next to first. So I sat between Billie Joe and Tre, and they both started talking to me, but I didn’t know which one I liked best cause they were both so nice, but then I decided I liked Bille Joe better because Tre kept singing these rap songs that had lots of bad words in them. In fact, I was surprised they even let him in the band, because I didn’t think GREEN DAY ever said swear words. Well, they did on that one song, “Knowledge”, but that’s only because it was written by some other band, Operation Ivy, who I heard were a bunch of punk rockers.
Then we went to a show at this place called “Hippycore” and there were all these people with long hair standing around eating vegetables and stuff. It was kind of icky. But the worst thing was when I found out there were gonna be some OTHER bands playing, too. I got really mad and said, “Why can’t GREEN DAY just play for 3 hours? Why do you have all these other stupid bands?” Everybody told me to be quiet, and that the other bands were good too. But they weren’t. I mean, they weren’t GREEN DAY. They didn’t even have any songs that I could sing along to. So, I kept yelling, “BOOOOO! Your terrible! We want Green Day!!” until some rocker bitch told me to shut up or she would re-arrange my face with her bottle opener. I wondered if she was just trying to be friendly, but I decided she wasn’t, so I went outside to wait for my heroes, GREEN DAY.
But when they finally played, it was worth everything! Billie sang one of my favorite songs, and then, right in the middle of “Disappearing Boy”, he stopped and said, “I’d like to dedicate this song to out very special friend Laurie L., who came down from Pinole to be here with us today. She’s just so beautiful and nice, gosh, I know if she was my girlfriend, I’d never disappear again.” That’s when I fainted.
When I woke up, the show was over, and they were packing away all of the equipment. I said, “Billie Joe, did you really mean what you said on stage?” And he looked at me sincerely, and said, “You know it babe, but our love can never be because I already belong to another. Besides, you’re too young and innocent for the life of a rock and roll wife. Take my advice, go back to Pinole and finish school, and one day you’ll make some lucky guy very happy.” “But Billie, I’d do anything to be with you. I already did! I killed my parents just so I could be here tonight.” But he just laughed and said, “Really? Killed your parents, huh? That’s pretty cool.”
Then we all got in Green Day’s tour bus to drive to Los Angeles. I was pretty excited, because I never was in Hollywood before, and I had a map of all the stars houses and everything. But we didn’t see any movie stars, just a bunch of boys with big hairdos and women that Tre said were prostitutes. I never know whether to believe him or not. He’s kinda mean you know. I am starting to think he’s my least favorite member of Green Day because he kept singing that horrible Ice Cube song that goes, “Bitch-Killa, Bitch-Killa.” Besides, when I asked him for his autograph, he said I had to talk to his agent, and when I asked who his agent was, he started to unzip his pants. So I screamed, and Bille and Mike told Tre to behave and he did after that, even though I said I thought they should tie him up till the next show, but Mike said a lot of drummers are like that, their brains just get rattled around too much from all that pounding.
Then you know what? I saw Billie and Mike drinking out of BEER BOTTLES!! I was shocked because they’re not even 21, in fact, they’re only 18, so I asked them what the big idea was, but Billie took me aside and whispered, “Listen, you’ve got to keep this a secret, but there isn’t really beer in these bottles.” “There isn’t?” I asked. “NO, it’s really milk. Everybody in Green Day likes milk best of all, but the thing is, we drink it out of beer bottles because if we don’t, people will make fun of us and think we are sissies.”
Then I understood and I felt so sorry for the boys. Peer Pressure is such a terrible thing. At the show in Hollywood I even got to stay backstage and everything, but just as the boys were getting ready to play, there was a knock at the dressing room door. “It must be our deli tray.” Everyone said, but it wasn’t. It was the POLICE! OMIGOD!! I jumped in front of the officers, and said, “Wait! Don’t arrest Green Day. There isn’t really beer in those bottles, its really milk!” He looked at me and said “Is it now? And your name wouldn’t happen to be Laurie now would it little lady?” And I said, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” “Then we’ll have to ask you to come with us.” “What do you mean?” I screamed. “Are you crazy? Green Day is going to be playing any minute now!” But he said, “Sorry, it can’t be helped,” and they took me in back of the police car and handcuffed me and everything, and then I thought, oh god, I wonder if this has anything to do with my parents?
Sure enough, it did. That stupid pitbull dragged one of my dad’s collarbones into the house, and it’s owner found it and called the cops. So I didn’t get to see the rest of the tour, and I had to go to court and everything and now I’m in jail, and I might not get out until the year 2019. Oh well, everyone’s pretty nice here and they let me listen to my Green Day tapes. But they all ask me, was it worth it? Killing your parents just so you could go on tour with Green Day? And I just smile, a deep, knowing smile, because I’ve seen and done things that they’ll never experience, not if they live to be 100, and I say, “Of course it was. After all, everyone gets 2 parents, but there’s only one GREEN DAY!”