When I Was 17

Have y'all seen that show "When I Was 17" on MTV?
I have watched a couple of episodes and I think it's great.
A number of the celebrities that they have interviewed have been right around my age, so it has been fun to reminisce a little. 

I thought I would write my own when I was 17.

When I was 17 - I spent a lot of time watching my handsome athlete boyfriend play whatever sport he was playing at the time.

When I was 17 - I worked at Hallmark. After school every day I would go put on my little smock and I would straighten and organize cards.  I also did a lot of cleaning and dusting of "collectibles and gifts". My favorite part was working the cash register.  Most of the time it was a pretty boring job, except around holidays (Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Graduations, and Christmas were the busy times.)  I loved when it was busy and we were wrapping presents, making balloon orders, and ringing up people.  The other time it was busy was when we got Beanie Babies in.  People would line up outside the door to buy those things!  (And I admit that I fell into the craze and a still have a number of bears still in a box somewhere that I wasted $10 a piece on!)

When I was 17 - I drove a green Ford Taurus that my dad bought for me from a family friend.  It was a pretty good car, except for the radio...  It would only get one country music station on it.  So I listened to a bunch of CDs (we will get to those in a minute).  Well, one day my friend/ex-boyfriend (well, I don't really count him as a "boyfriend" because well... that is a really long story that has a very embarrassing ending that makes me feel horrible every time I think of it.) ANYWAY, my friend thought he would try to fix my radio.  The next thing I knew it wouldn't work at all, even the CD player part, and it was duck taped into the dash.  Beautiful!

Before that I drove our family's blue mini van.  I actually didn't drive around a lot because my parents used it most of the time (since it was their car and all....) but when I did we had lots of fun.  Like the times that Josh and our friend Jonathan would put on their roller blades and each hold onto one side of the back bumper - I would drive around the church parking lot (which was basically part of our back yard since we lived in the church parsonage).  The boys would hold on until I hit the breaks and then they would let go and go flying in front of me.  (It wasn't dangerous at all!) 

There was also the night that a bunch of us decided to go to the movies.  Everyone packed into the van and I drove the few blocks to the movie theater.  After the movie we all went to go back out to the van.  When we looked around there was no blue mini van.  I had a small panic attack because I knew the car had been stolen!  I didn't know what to do.  Josh's house was basically around the block from the movie theater (yes, it was a very small town!) so he decided to walk to his house, get his bike, and go get my parents.  (This was before my cell phone days.)  A few of my friends left me but my friend Jonathan stayed with me until I saw Josh riding back towards me on his bike.  I still remember him saying "I have good news and bad news.  The good news is the car was not stolen.  It is at your house in the driveway.  The bad news is, you are in really big trouble!"  I guess my sister told my parents that I had taken the van with a bunch of people in it.  They got upset with me so they drove to the movie theater, picked it up, and left me there.  I never took the van without asking again.

When I was 17 - every Wednesday night we had a Dawson's Creek viewing party.  After youth group there were a ton of people who would walk across the lawn, go into our basement and gather around to watch Joey, Pacey, and Dawson. 

When I was 17 - every school day for lunch my friends and I would all separate into our cars, go to wherever we wanted lunch from, and then meet up at my house and would eat together.  My favorite memory of that would be all the music that we would crank up in our cars as we drove away.  I remember a whole bunch of Brittany Spears, Nsync, Usher, Destiny's Child, a few Will Smith songs, and Puff Daddy with Mase songs.  And honestly, I guess you have to throw a few Spice Girls songs in there too. I also remember listening to the soundtrack for My Best Friend's Wedding a lot.  I loved it!

And since I was a good Christian girl, of course I listened to DC Talk, Micheal W Smith Point of Grace, and Passion

When I was 17 - the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer came out.  That summer for some reason my friends and I thought it would be a great idea to watch every scary movie that we could find.  Night after night we would go to rent horror movies.  The two that stick out in my mind that make me laugh was all of us watching Steven King's IT and also a movie that was the story of Jeffrey Dahmer.

I also have many memories of the "teen movies" like Can't Hardly Wait, Drive Me Crazy, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She's All That (but a few of those may have come out right after I turned 18...)  Anyway, it seems like in all of them they danced to the same song.  (See example)

When I was 17 - basically all my clothes were from Abercrombie, American Eagle, Old Navy, and Gap. For "dates" I would have Josh drive me to the mall (which was like an hour away.)  I would shop then we would have dinner and go to a movie.  We did that all the time!  It was one of my favorite things to do.

When I was 17 - I had a some typical teenage drama in my life, but had great friends and was very happy!