Where were you?

Where were you the first time you heard Jackopierce? I was in a military dorm room in Italy, down the hall from a Coke machine that had two-dollar-a-piece Budweiser canned beers for sale. I never actually bought one, but I didn't walk by that machine once without smiling at it.

My two suite mates were co-bulimics whom I could always hear regurgitating their chow hall meals in our shared bathroom. Sometimes they would leave their jeans lying on the floor, and I could see that inside one pair was another. They had to wear two pairs at a time so that nobody could discern how thin they had become. To this day, I still think they stole my Shania Twain CD, and I get a little mad every time I hear her on the radio.

My roommate had a distinctly nasally voice, which became increasingly annoying when she began to date my ex-boyfriend (sans the go-ahead), and felt compelled to ask me for daily relationship advice. She would walk around sniffling, wearing his jacket, asking me, "WHAT SHOULD I DO?" He broke up with her the same week she'd finished paying off his motorcycle. That more than made up for the time she passed out on my Italian lace tablecloth with a blue popsicle in her hand.

I, frankly, was no good at shining combat boots or pressing my uniform at 4 am, but that's what I did, every day, playing "Weather." I would sometimes fall asleep while ironing, and I still have a few scars on my hands and forearms to prove it. These days, I'm more thankful for sleep than most. And I'm more thankful for Jackopierce than most.