The Marimba

My phone's ring tone is nothing fancy. I have never downloaded one, but if I did it would definitely be "The Thong Song" by Cisco. I kid, I kid. For me, downloading a ring tone seems like getting a tattoo almost, like every time your phone rings, you're proclaiming to the world "This is who I am" just as a tattoo proclaims who you are, like "I'm eco-friendly because I have this dolphin frolicking across my lower back," or "Don't get too close. I have a very sharp barbed wire on my bicep here," or "I must be bilingual from the looks of these Chinese characters on my calf." Just by what song is playing on your phone every time it rings, you could be telling people that you like big butts and you cannot lie. Or maybe you're a cowboy, on a steel horse you ride. Whatever comes out of that pitiful little speaker, it says something major about you to whomever you're with. And I'm just not sure what that would be for me, as quickly as my mood seems to change, just as I would never be able to decide what I'd want to tattoo on my left bottom cheek. So instead of something novel and self-defining, I have one of the iPhone's standards. It's called "Marimba", a jaunty ditty named after the instrument that it is played by--a glorified xylophone played with two hammer thingees in each hand. I like it; it isn't that annoying and pretty non-descript. But every time I hear the joyful little sound, I am reminding of a weird little time in my life and am washed with a wave a guilt. Won't you join me down this frightful path known to me as "Memory Lane?"

I'm 19, a sophomore at BYU, working at the Games Center, which for you non-Zoobies, is the bowling alley and arcade located in the pulsating righteous heart of the BYU.
There's just nothing like the stench of sweaty bowling shoes not-really-being-masked by lemon-scented spray in the morning to fill your lungs and soul with pride, knowing that once you spray that toxic substance into that dripping size 14 shoe that has been worn by an elephant of a man for the past 2 hours, you are getting paid approximately $4 an hour for doing this disgusting but necessary work, all in the name of progress and enabling you to afford the holy grail of all college food: ramen noodles.

As much as I loathed working there and loathed the bright blue polo shirt I was required to wear even more, I did meet some interesting people. One of them was a co-worker, a boy who was a year younger than I, a freshman, who I flirted with because I always preferred to flirt with boys I had no intention of dating, as opposed to flirting with boys I actually liked because I was a socially-retarded chicken like that. During our hours spent behind the Games Center counter, devouring Tootsie Rolls and hot-wiring the juke box to play what we wanted (The Thong Song?) we learned a lot about each other. One of these deep, dark secrets I unearthed about this kid was that he was a champion marimba player.
At the end of our time together, right before I quit that wretched place and moved onto to less stinky pastures and just a week before he left to serve his two-year mission, he and I made a bet, which was by the time he got back from his mission, I would be married. I, of course, bet against him, saying I would be wandering the halls of BYU for years, an old maid with menopausal wiry grey hairs coming out of my chin before I would get hitched. We bet $50 that if he ever saw me on campus after he got back, he had the right to grab my left hand and look for a ring. If I was wearing one, I would have to pay him $50 on the spot. If I wasn't, he would have to pay me $50 right then and there. We wrote up a contract. We shook on it. We might have even spit and shook on it. I could almost feel that $50 that would be in my pocket in two years, just thinking of all those ramen noodles I'd be able to afford.

So fast forward a year later, I am engaged. A year and a half later, I am married. And it was worth losing $50. I guess. Except for the fact that I never saw the kid again, so I actually didn't lose $50. I totally owe him $50. I would had never guessed that the marimba would induce so much guilt. I would just change my ring tone but I don't like any of the others. Perhaps I should just down load one, come out of my pink, prissy closet and let everyone know that I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world.