22-Mar-2007

Almost every year, I make it home for Derby, aka the horse race to end all horse races, the TITANIC or STAR WARS or GO (hehe) of the horseracing industry.  And every year, I fly home on the red eye Thursday night and stumble off the plane at 5 AM to meet my parents, who are waiting with open arms and thermoses of coffee, because there is no time for sleep Derby weekend.  Not even for me, who needs ten hours a night.  By nine, I am showered and either a) helping Mom get ready for the thirty plus weekend houseguests my parents host every year or, and this is the more likely option, b) on the phone with Chlydia, the Shopaholic, Penny, Farrah, or the Dauditor as I toss back shots of Beam and figure out how I'm going to wear my hair for The Oaks. 

The Oaks, though less well-known, is my favorite race of the weekend.  It's a race for the mares the day before Derby (not that a mare hasn't won the Derby, mind you - Winning Colors, anyone?), and we usually all pile into a few cars and traipse over to Keeneland in our suits, sundresses and soap-shining, hungover faces.  My favorite thing about Keeneland - the hot dogs.  I usually eat about five of them during the course of the day, and somehow, on this most magical of days, I manage NOT to smear mustard all over the front of my dress.  

Last year, the party continued at the Entrepreneur's house.  Not only does he know how to paint, fix, and pimp rides, the boy can also grill.  So we eat.  And I somehow get someone to drive me home, the whole time keeping my fingers crossed that members of Dad's biker gang (not kidding) have not taken over my bed.  But Mom, even when she's drunk, is good about keeping my room mine, and it's a good thing, cause I'm very possessive of my bed.  Why?  Because my bed at home is the most comfortable bed IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, including but not limited to Pluto and beyond.  Plus, I get to sleep amidst all my blue ribbons and trophies of yonder year, for everything from soccer to horseback riding to English Composition (suck on that, Chlydia!!) to Physics.  I used to be smart, people.  Very, very smart.  But not smart enough, on Derby weekend, to avoid my grandmother's pleas that I attend Jesus's house with her on Sunday morning.  I don't mind though, mainly because I know I will be too drunk to have to listen.  Plus, the communion wafers are pretty awesome.  So I don't worry about it as I drift off for two hours of peaceful slumber. 

When I wake up, Mom is cooking, and Dad is demonstrating the lifesize singing Dean Martin doll I got him a few Christmases ago to a rapt group of law enforcement officials.  And who says we're not classy?  But I pay it all no mind.  I just grab some coffee to go, because it's Derby Breakfast time.  What's the Derby breakfast, you ask?  Well, it's only my favorite thing ever, because, even though the food is way too greasy, even for me, and the Southern belles slightly faded-looking in their hoop skirts, THERE ARE STILL CLOGGERS!!! And I can simultaneously watch and heckle cloggers when drunk, or sober, really, especially when they strike up their metal to "Roll with it, Baby."  And then I hear my dad, "Why do they clog to this song every fucking year?  Why not Poison?  I hate this song."  So I have no choice but to heckle - it is my father's wish.  Luckily, my boisterous drunk friends are always pleased to help.  

We still have some time to kill before the actual Derby, so we head to - you guessed it - THE BAR!!!  Now, look, I'm making it sound like I'm an alcoholic.  Not true.  Not true ever since an unfortunate drunk blackout episode in Russia back in 2001, which I can tell you about if you ask me, but during which I'll probably cry and wish for my mommy.  Anyway, where was I?  Ah, yes, we're at the bar.  It's around this time, 10:30 AM, that I'm hoping, hoping, fingers crossed, for my grandmother to call.... and yes!  She does.  "Melissa?"  She asks.  "Where are you?"  I look around at the bar, at my friends nearly missing each other with darts and pool cues, and I reply, "I'm at.... (I see one of my friends, passed out drunk, leaned against the wall)... the homeless shelter.  Where I am EVERY Saturday morning at 10 AM."  "Oh," she bought it.  "Well, I was thinking, maybe we shouldn't go to church tomorrow.  I'm not feeling so well."  Me - "Awesome!!!  I mean, Jesus is sad?"  And that's that.  She flakes on me (and Jesus) EVERY YEAR!!!  I hate it when people flake.  It's backpedaling and false.  Jesus hates it too.  But on Derby day, it makes me HAPPY!!! 

For the actual race, it depends on which political party is in power.  With one, we can pull some strings, with the other, we're stuck in the infield with all the pot-smoking hippies and poor people.  Which sucks.  So lately, we've been pretty loyal Keeneland attendees.  And we inevitably end up seeing EVERYONE we know.  Last year, for example, I did shots with my high school biology teacher in the ladies' restroom.  At around 5 or so, the horses run.  Very quickly.  And I inevitably cry for the one who comes in last - one year, I told one of my friends visiting from out of state that they shot the pony who came in last.  He started crying, too, and I laughed at him for being so gullible. 

By the time I get home on Derby Eve, I always find a bunch of drunk bikers littered about the house.  My mom is sometimes doing something odd, like vacuuming spilled lasagna off the kitchen floor with a Dustbuster (read:  drunk!!!).  But, again, I'm too tired to notice.  And even though I don't go to church the next morning, I spend it and the flight home thanking the WBJ for family, friends, Jim Beam, and shitty cloggers. 

So why all the nostalgia?  Because this year, my dearests, I am not going home for Derby.  I am heartbroken, I am sulky, and I still can't believe it, but there's just no way.  I'll be crying for that last horse on my own couch out here in L.A., where I have no trophies, no law enforcement bikers, and where, inevitably, mustard will be spilled on whatever top I'm wearing.  But such is life.