For those of you who don’t know things, Key Club is the teenage version of Kiwanis, which is a club which does service stuff like...uh...cleaning parks and planting trees and trying to convince old people they’re still important. I didn’t really give a fuck, I was just there cause my friends were in it and my other friend was president.
     This was the 51st annual convention of the California - Nevada - Hawaii district. I don’t know how they got past the 3rd if they were all as boring as this one. Anyway, it was held down in Anaheim (for those of you foreigners, that’s where Disneyland is). In fact the convention center is right across the street from Disneyland.
     It took place from Friday to Sunday, so right after school Friday we left. 12 people from our club were coming, along with a chaperone and the sponser/ teacher. My friend Matt was driving his mom’s car, and riding along were Mark (the president), R.J., me, and this other guy nobody knew. Traffic sucked so we passed time thinking up tricks to do on this prick who was also coming. In order to protect David Tran’s identity, I’ll refer to him as Mr. X from now on. We came up with tricks like shaving his head, stealing his shoes, ejaculating into his mouth while he’s asleep (try explaining that if someone walks in), stealing one shoe, writing 666 on his face, and gluing his hand to the crotch of the guy he was sharing a bed with, although that was too cruel to the other guy.
     After checking in to the hotel (a Quality hotel, which is code for "shitty"), we went next door to the Marriot (code for "expensive, but what’re you going to do about it") This was where the rest of the clubs from other schools were staying. There were truckloads of kids all over the place. Most of the them had...uh, spirit. Lots of singing and chanting and flag waving and "Our club’s better than yours" and dick measuring. Well, no, but that’s basically what they were doing. There were even some clubs with cute uniforms. They were so cute I wanted to puke. The SAAs were all over the place, policing what went on. SAAs are the Sergeants At Arms, basically police. Most of them were pretentious, overly glorified hall monitors.
     After a stupid fiasco of looking for our sponsor we got our badges and junk and went back to the hotel. We decided to have dinner at Denny’s and skip the first activity, which was the general session, a massive meeting. Heh heh. Fuck it. After that we caught the end of a caucus. A caucus is where people who are running for offices come up and bullshit and answer questions. You can ask them anything you want. Then Mark, Matt, R.J., and I ran all over Anaheim looking for the materials to do the pranks on Mr. X. We ended up at a Food For Less, where we got scissors and a permanent marker. I wanted to get some laxatives, but they were too expensive. While walking back to the car this truck sped into a parking space right in front of us and two big guys got out. We were like, oh shit. But nothing happened. It’s a good thing too, cause, uh, I would’ve kicked their asses. Eventually we didn’t do the pranks on Mr. X because we couldn’t get into his room.
     The activities on Saturday were all formal, meaning coats and ties and that crap. I was sure the SAAs would enforce this rule. They probably wouldn’t let us in to the day’s activities and meals. I didn’t want to wear one of those junior executive yuppie scum hipster $3000 suits with baggy pants and look like every other Key Clubber. I wore this black suit with pinstripes that used to be my grandpa's. It was a little too small and I also wore a skinny black tie, so that I looked like a mortician or a hitman. The second general session was in the arena in the convention center. The four of us were walking in formation, like in Reservior Dogs. Would’ve scared the shit out of me if I saw 4 guys wearing suits and in formation coming down the sidewalk towards me. By the time we got to the arena the session was over, so we left.
     We couldn’t decide what to eat for breakfast so our whole group split up. The four of us and this guy named Michael and this other guy whose name I can’t remember crammed into Matt’s car and went to Carl’s Jr. We wanted to skip the rest of the Key Club crap and go to Knott’s Berry Farm, but there wasn’t enough time.
     Back at the hotel we messed around and played billiards. Lunch was in this giant underground room at the convention center. I think it was a parking garage, cause it was all concrete and exposed plumbing. They served this weird salad-like thing in a taco shell. Needless to say I didn’t eat.
     We finally attended a session after lunch. It was like a big Nazi rally with huge Key Club flags and people shouting and stuff. My friend told me that last year if you got too loud the Key Club would send their secret police to "talk" to you. I got an idea to get an airhorn after another group kept annoying us with theirs. I forgot what the session was about. It was boring though. We went to a caucus afterwards. People kept asking the candidates to say the alphabet backwards and lame stuff like that, so the candidates would turn their backs to us and say the alphabet (duh). My friend asked this one girl to say it upside down. She did it too. I was going to ask, "Do these pants make my ass look big?" but the SAAs would’ve taken me in the back and roughed me up. The candidates had really impressive grades. I don’t think anyone had a GPA under 4.3. They were also in a shitload of clubs. Important clubs too, not like Star Trek or the Chess club.
     In the afternoon we bought the airhorn at a Big 5. The employees were looking at our suits. I bet they were like, "What are these sharply dressed gentlemen doing in our business establishment?" Stupid Mark and Matt used the airhorn in the car. Goddamn, those things are loud. Then they did it again (duh, that was cool, let’s do it again). I wanted to go to the Marriot, get all the elevators up to the top floor, then put trashcans between the doors so they couldn’t close. That would’ve been such a cool prank, but we didn’t do it.
     After dinner was another session. It was mostly an awards show, with awards going to people I didn’t know or care about, and the same people winning over and over again. A talent show followed. The first act was a bunch of guys breakdancing. Actually breakdancing. I didn’t know people still did that. This 80’s revival is really getting out of hand. I keep expecting to see people in headbands and jean jackets with rolled up sleeves. There were some singers too. I have no idea how people know when to scream during a song. For example, someone’s singing, then all of a sudden the audience screams in unison. What the hell are you guys screaming about? Shut up. The rest of the show sucked so we left. Some SAAs got in trouble while we were leaving. It seems they weren’t supposed to let people leave yet. When we heard this we ran. Heh heh. Fucking SAAs.
     The last event of the day was the Governor’s Ball, at the Marriot. The program didn’t say "dress code in effect", so I thought I could wear normal clothes. Nope, I was wrong. The prick SAA at the door said, "I don’t think I can let you in with a t-shirt." Well fuck you asshole. So I had to go back and change again. Ruined my day. Also, my friends had already gone in, and they had the room keys, so I was locked out. But luckily, our sponsor had the custodian at her room for something else, so he let me in. I finally got back to the ball.
     The room was totally dark except for the light show by the D.J. I could feel the room throbbing with music. Actually, it was more bass than music. I found my friends and followed them around. The D.J. was playing that mainstream dance techno rap shit. I hated it. The dancefloor was fucking hot too. Damnit, turn on the air conditioning, you stingy hotel bastards. I tried to dance, cause I would’ve looked stupid if I just stood there. I didn’t get too into it though, cause it was rap. I should go to industrial and goth clubs. I’d enjoy them more.
     Sunday morning there was one last session. The place was half empty. The president or whatever of the Cali-Nev-Ha district made a long speech. I’m not sure how he became president. I didn’t hear about any election, and nobody told me to vote. Throughout my time in Key Club I didn’t hear anything about a president, and all of a sudden we have one. What kind of totalitarian service club is this? We are under a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the common student is exploited for the glory of the Club. Key Club should be an autonomous collective, an anarcho-syndicalist commune, with everybody taking turns acting as sort of an executive officer for a week. But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two-thirds majority in more major affairs. And the SAAs? I have a feeling these guys would beat me up if I disagreed with Key Club ideals. Through the SAAs we can see the violence inherent in this type of system. The ideas and opinions of the common student should not be repressed, no matter how controversial they may be. [NOTE: The above paragraph was written to fill up this space down here. In no way does it reflect the opinions of Key Club International. They’re holding a gun to my head and forcing me to write this. Help]