Last summer I inherited a group of friends. They weren’t the type of people I could have sleepovers with or gossip about who was pregnant. Instead I went to robotics competitions and ate food I regretted later. These friends were a bunch of boys that I love dearly. However, I did not always love the things we did together, and during our trials I may have lost a good ten years of my life. It all started when my friend Polly introduced me to A.J., Eli and Andrew. From then on ten hours or more was spent with these guys a week. Now more boys came and went but they all centered around Eli, or as I called him the ring master.
For some reason they decided it would be fun to drag both Polly and I to their robotics competition. I had no clue what I was getting myself into and neither did Polly so we decided to go and check out the scene. It turned out to be similar to dog fighting with robots that look ironically like Wall-E. However being the boys they were, they decided to make their robot a woman. So to add to the awkwardness of the situation, we had to drive down to the local JC Penney’s and buy an old mannequin from the store. I didn’t even know you could buy mannequins and I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to.
So here they are in a makeshift arena fighting a robot with lipstick on. During one of their “battles” supposedly another team made a false move that was overlooked by the supposedly legal judges. Though they fought for their victory, the judges were intent upon the idea that Team Magruder had made a foul play. Don’t ask me what this foul play was; I was too confused to even realize that they had been disqualified from the competition. This angered the boys, so to avenge themselves they cleverly stole all of the team’s food. Let’s just say that we had to leave the place very quickly as to not be discovered. We didn’t even eat the food when we all got home. We took pictures of the woman robot devouring the food and sent it to the opposing team who had played them seeing as they were the ones who had falsely accused them in the first place. That same team refused to play Team Magruder at the next tournament.
When we weren’t out causing havoc amongst the streets of D.C., we were at Eli’s house having Halo parties. Now I’m not much of a video game person myself, but these guys actually made storylines to go along with the bloody murder that was happening on the screen. Eddie, being the most omniscient of the bunch, decided his name would be God. At point he yelled at Eli, “I put you in this world. I SHALL TAKE YOU OUT!!!!” However, as much as the boys were having fun, they couldn’t pay attention to one thing for very long. Being risk takers and such they would switch to their next favorite game, Truth or Dare.

Since most of them were boys, the average,” I dare you to kiss him” was out of the picture. Instead we played Food Truth or Dare in which you had to do ridiculous things with food. I myself had to drink an entire cup of honey and then later had to eat the entire contents of a mango flavored tea bag. Bernard ate half of a solid bar of soap and burped bubbles for an hour. The down fall of this game is when you get something painful such as when Justin had to snort cayenne pepper. I never played the game with them after that, it was too painful to watch.
Halloween was like the fourth of July for the guys. Instead of going out buying the average pirate or zombie costume, they would scrounge around in their closets, basements, and attics for wacky and out of date materials. The most creative was of course Eli, who found a greasy ball cap and a tan trench coat. Now we’ve all seen the typical streaker at a football game or at least on a commercial, and that was Eli for the night. The problem was he actually convinced all of us that he truly was naked under the coat. The tension built as the night went on until finally Andrew cried for Eli to remove the coat so that we could finally solve the mystery of Eli’s state of dress. We all hoped as he slowly removed the coat that he had shorts on and to our relief he did. I loved all of our costumes that year because they described our personalities perfectly even though we were dressed up as different people.

Though the boys were goofy on most occasions, they had depth and intellect that I’m still in awe of today. To add to their list of activities, they were all also part of IT’S ACADEMIC, a show similar to Jeopardy. Each one of them excelled in one area such as math or history and they brought incredible strength to their team. While other teams brought cheerleaders and marching bands to cheer on their schools, Magruder had us, a group of teenagers with makeshift signs and cowbells. Though our resources may have been lacking compared to the opposing teams, we had the most spirit, for Eli would wear the Barney suit and dance to the school theme song. Though they did not always win their meets, they were never soar losers even though I know they wanted to be.
The entirety of my sophomore year was spent with those boys who had me laughing all the time due to their immaturity and will to have a lot of fun. But, even though they all still have lots of growing up to do, they all are destined to do amazing things. They all have a special place in my heart, and even though we’ve fallen apart since I’ve moved, and they’ve all gone off to college, their silliness has affected me permanently, unfortunately.