Manhattan. And not the good one.

Since my BFF, MarciaGarcia, flew in this weekend, we of course went out for cocktails and chit chat and I was reminded of one of our historical antics. During law school, beneath tedious amounts of reading, we certainly had to balance the work with a certain amount of amusement. A particularly fun weekend was that of the KU vs. KSU football game. Fun for us, never fun for KU because the football program at KSU was a powerhouse at that time.

MG had many friends at KSU so she constructed a very fun weekend road trip to Manhattan, Kansas which would include parties, attending the game, my inaugural visit to Rusty’s Last Chance Saloon, many trays of shots, not one minute of rooting for our actual team knowing a lost cause when we see one, and having a giant sleepover at the home of one of her friends.

For some reason, the following activity also appeared on our agenda.

We, for reasons unknown to me now, decided to spend Friday afternoon visiting the mall in Manhattan. Or what I like to call seven stores in a row. While we were leaving, we happen to spot a giant KSU flag waving from a flagpole in front of Dillards.

MG (do not attempt to deny this, MG) said, “We should take that.”

ShaNaNa, our GoodGirl, says, “No, we should not.”

This does not deter us.

ShaNaNa also says, “And if you did want it, there is no way to get it down.” It is, after all, a very, very large flag. On a very long flagpole, mounted about 25 feet off the ground, on another large pole.

MarciaGarcia says, “It wouldn’t be that hard to get down.”

I say nothing and simply take action. Juvenile delinquent-esque action, but action nonetheless.

I scale the pole. Like SpiderMan. Or a monkey. And after a few minutes of persistent trickery, all while wrapped around the pole like Courtney Love, I get the giant flag AND flagpole down. We have no where to easily put this for transportation.

MarciaGarcia, wisely, has pulled up the getaway car. I shove the flag inside her vehicle, aptly named The Golden Nugget, and we drive away with the flagpole easily sticking 6 – 8 feet out of the car.

We take it to her friends. We laugh. They hear the story. They laugh. They tell everyone. EVERYONE laughs. We gloat. We are dubious and sinister. We are the real Ranconteurs. We are the Usual Suspects. We are the Queens of Leon.

We have BIG fun that weekend and leave the flag in their backyard as both souvenir and housewarming gift. We never plan to think of it again but the story shall live on. And indeed it does.

MarciaGarcia gets a phone call weeks later from her Father. “You need to call me today.” Not his typical style so she rings him. It appears the Manhattan Police Department received a call from a witness in the parking lot of Dillards who reported not only the questionable behavior and petty thievery she witnessed, but also the license plate number of the getaway car: The Golden Nugget.

The Golden Nugget actually belongs to MarciaGarcia’s father.
Uh oh.

She, the budding prosecutor and stunning orator, attempts to dissuade his alarm. We pool our genius friends together to craft a plan to protect our incredibly guilty selves. Our feeble attempts achieve no success and the bottom line: Return the Flag. OR ELSE.  This a message both from the Police and MarciaGarcia's Father.

We first have to retrieve the flag. We then have to drive all the way to the police department with guilty evidence protruding from my convertible and flapping in the wind like we are in some Thanksgiving Parade. At the station, we hope to simply ring the doorbell and run. No girls, sorry. We are made to sit and wait. And receive a lecture. And some questioning. Oh, I know we deserved it but it soon became nonsensical even though we had no idea if we were walking away unscathed. MarciaGarcia was actually taken into a separate room to be interrogated. Finally, they let us depart with a finger shake a promise (never to be kept) that we would not cause mischief in Manhattan again.

In parting, the ornery policeman asks MarciaGarcia how in the world we got the flag down. Does she feign ignorance? Shrug and remain silent? Add one more lie to the pile? NO. She points at me and says, “Ask her. She is the one that climbed up there and got it.”

Thanks.
B*tch.

But we did learn a lesson. Flagpoles can be trouble.

And, from that point forward, I was better off with the good Manhattan anyway.



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