Let’s not kid ourselves: No matter how many times we’ve been to this godforsaken place, we’re not any more prepared for it than we were the last time.
I tried to sum up my spring break in one word and the first thing that came to mind was “shitstorm.” Maybe it’s the predictable choice, maybe it’s a little cliché, but I could confirm “shitstorm” as the perfect word once I thought long and hard about my spring break. It was the definition of a shitstorm.
A shitstorm isn’t merely a series of unfortunate events but, rather, an irrational expectation that things are going to be swell followed by the grim reality that you’ve just entered a world where dreams are tarnished, full-time jobs offers are revoked and toilet paper is a cherished resource – perhaps more literally than we’d like to admit.
There was no set of rules my last spring break and there were no explanations that could justify the words that came out of my mouth or the demons that came out of my, well, use your imagination. I speak for everyone that stayed at the Key West Sheraton when I say that there is no monetary value that could sufficiently serve as an apology to the housekeeping staff, but we hoped that the crumpled $5 bill and karaoke sign up sheet we left behind would do.
Sincerely,
“The Young Professionals” (why this continues to work I do not know)
When we weren’t straddling a toilet (or hunched over one), squeezing the shower curtains, begging for the exorcism to finally be over or contemplating whether Drake had ever found out what the square root of 69 was, Key West was actually a pretty nice time.
Since everyone from “The Alligator” thinks I’m sexist, I’ll be pretty brief about the beach scene. There was some sand, some boats and some babes. The boobies were out and flyin’ around! Cosmic rays shining on them real nice!
Anyway, back to the beach. You guys ever see that movie “Biodome”? With Stephen Baldwin and Pauly Shore? Well, picture those guys on the beach multiplied by like 300. Except way better bods (quick shout out to my boys, how’s that for sexism? Ha!) Every day at the beach went something like this:
Cops: “For Christ’s sake, there are beer cans floating in the ocean. There are beer cans in the sand. There are beer cans all over the goddamn streets. Does that mean anything to you kids?”
Random bro: “Haha yeah! It means we’re out of beer duuuuudeee!!!!!!!!!!”
Quick rewind, before I left for spring break, my friends and I thought it’d be smart this time around to buy some health bars, maybe some PB&J’s, some chasers, some Mio for our vodka-soda-Mio concoctions (shout out to my boys) and a nice big pack of H2O for the people staying in the rooms next to us. (“All good bro, ya no worries, gotta hydrate, haha you the man take whatever you want.”)
So, on the first night word gets out that the boys in 207 are having a nice pregame. So we clean up the room a little, jack the air down to a crisp 42, put the toilet seats back down for the ladies, toss the miniature ice bucket aside and grab a big ol’ garbage pale for ice. (Because what is this? A pregame for ants?) And let me tell you, we had the place looking nice (shout out to my boys). So I quickly run into the washroom, take off my cleaning apron, apply a courtesy layer of Certain-Dri and throw on my party vest.
Suddenly, I hear a colossal knock on the door, which startles me for a moment and I think to myself “Wow! This girl has got an appetite for drinking, and I ain’t that mad.” I open the door and am immediately stampeded by nine dudes, straight out of a scene from “Jumanji”. Everyone is wearing Hawaiian-themed shirts and it was freaking sweet. Within one hour all the chasers were gone, at least half the room was doing pushups and one guy was styling his hair with Publix-brand crunchy peanut butter. All I was left with was a plastic bag with a quarter of a bottle of Ciroq in it that was actually filled with some type of gin. (It may or may not have be mixed. I don’t know and I’m over it.) (shout out to the same Joey from last year. Please refer to Spring Break Recap: Key West 1)
The rest of the trip was a blur. You’d come back from the beach, contemplate napping, torture ourselves by staring at a room service menu, fall asleep and wake up to the sound of grunting — grunting due to your boys doing curls with gallon water jugs (shout out to my boys). Hit that for a few sets and hop in the shower. Fast forward: Every bar was filled with the same UF kids you see every night in Gainesville, predictable hookups, predictable breakups, expensive pizza and Wendy’s (shout out to my boys).
I’m not going to sit here and reflect on my last spring break, and I’m not going to talk about my boys because I’ll have an article out in a couple months titled “The Boys: For The Boys, With The Boys, By The Boys”, and it’s going to be all about my boys (shout out to my boys).
My boys
But what I can tell you is that there comes a point in college, hopefully sooner than later, where despite your level of inebriation, some part of your subconscious forces you to stay awake. Not for the fear of missing out (shout out to FOMO) or some inexplicable chemical imbalance, but because somewhere inside you, your future self in 10 years (shout out to McConaughey) is desperately pleading for these moments to last forever.
And that is fucking terrifying.
There is a moment during everyone’s spring break where they “black in.” For those unfamiliar with the sensation, it is not when you spend the next day piecing together what happened the night before; it’s when you suddenly regain consciousness, infant-level motor skills and temporary vision while still drunk. Sometimes this happens while you’re eating a double cheeseburger, or sometimes it happens when you’re on stage alone in a karaoke bar singing, “I’m a hazard to myself” by Pink. But that, my friends, is when you must, with all your might, lift your chin, turn to the left, focus on the large, piercingly shiny monitor, read from left to right, and just fucking go for it.
