Senior Trip

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5/87

 

"Well I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday..."

-Meatloaf

 

I'm hoping to make this my last high school story, even though there are many worthy events in need of expressing. I feel these stories are a little too old to be of interest to anyone except to those directly involved. If you do like these stories, let me know, I'll post some more.

THIS story, on the other hand, is funny in and of itself, so it needs to be written.

By the way, ALL names have been changed in this story (if the person did something that might be embarrassing). Stuff like this could ruin future political careers, including mine.

When they finally started planning our senior trip in High School, they gave us a choice: Florida, or Kings Pavilion, Virginia. Every person I knew (and that was a lot of people) voted for Florida.

The senior class trip ended up being to Washington DC Don't ask how, we never got a straight answer ourselves.

I somehow scammed the money from my father to go on the trip. No easy feat. Apparently, the old "all my friends are going" ploy didn't hold much water. I don't actually recall how I talked him into it.

Friday after class, we all met outside the school. There were two busses waiting, and the chaperones were searching through everyone's luggage looking for contraband. The two teachers assigned to us were Mr. Stein; a social studies teacher whose blackboard I used to clean daily and Mrs. Jaffe; the theater teacher who loved me from the play I was in. I figured I could pretty much get away with murder this weekend.

They searched everything; toothpaste tubes, shampoo bottles, the battery compartments of our Walkmen, nothing was safe. My friend Roy managed to sneak a case of beer right onto the bus under everyone's noses. He took the case, wrapped it in Budweiser wrapping paper, and when anyone asked what it was, he would tell them it was a birthday present for Bill. They let him pass, and he sloshed the case onto the bus giggling like a madman the whole time. I know some other stuff was snuck on board, but I don't definitely know how.

Me and my little group of friends took over the back of one of the busses, and just harassed everyone for the entire ride.

Our first stop was Baltimore harbor. As we unloaded, the bus driver pulled me and my friends aside and told us not to start too much trouble while in the harbor. I guess he was given a list from the teachers of trouble makers. But, c'mon, how much trouble can you get into in Baltimore?

The first thing we decided to do was rent these little electric boats and cruise around the harbor. It was ten bucks for the boat, and when you return, they give you four back. They tell us not to go past the big submarine, no splashing, and don't bump the boats into each other.

So off we go. Fifteen boats, two to a boat, guy/girl in every boat except mine. I get stuck with Jason, this big black guy, one of my best friends, and part of my "group". Really nice guy, but not who I wanted to be stuck in a boat with.

So, we puttered around for a while chatting, and looking at all the couples in their boats. We started getting extremely jealous and mischievous, a truly dangerous combination.

We puttered over to the boat with Kevin and Patricia in it, said, "Hi, Kevin. Hi, Patricia," and started splashing water into their boat and all over them, then ran away.

The next boat near us held Bill, and Jamie. We pulled up along side of them, "Hi, Bill. Hi, Jamie," and splashed them too.

In about ten minutes, we had drenched thirteen boatloads of our friends. There were only two dry boats left, ours and the one containing Lloyd, and Kim. We floor the boat (1/2 a mile per hour) all the while screaming, "Death from kind of alongside!", "Prepare to be boarded!", and whatever other pirate type crap we could think of. As we started getting closer to Lloyd and Kim, they waved at us (not knowing what to make of us), and we waved back. All they could see was Jason and me with evil grins on our faces, and spread out behind us in hot pursuit, thirteen boats full of soaking wet people.

We heard screaming coming from the dock, and looked back to see some woman jumping up and down and pointing at us. Like the idiots we are, we stop the boat to hear what she was saying.

Twenty six angry friends of ours descended on our boat with a vengeance. They rammed us, splashed us, smacked us, and tried really hard to capsize us. When they stopped their assault, our boat was only about an inch over the water, and we were drenched to the bone. We brought the boats back in, and the woman threw a fit. Eight boats had been taken out of commission, and would need a few hours of hanging up to dry. Not only did they not want to give us our deposit back, but they wanted to call the cops.

We scampered away, and quite a few of our friends wanted me to pay them the deposit they lost. They never once asked Jason, they just assumed the whole thing was my fault.

Dripping wet, and grinning like idiots, we headed down Gay Street to get something to eat. We stopped into a McDonald's, got our food, and all sat down upstairs. Now, outside of New York, McDonald's puts mustard on their hamburgers, and that really annoys me. So I started scraping off the mustard, and pouring as much ketchup as I could all over this poor burger (I HATED mustard back then, I've gotten used to it by now, but still not on my hamburgers). So while I'm doing this, my friend, Mike drops his cup onto the floor near my feet, and crawls down there to get it. All I can see is Mike's butt sticking out the other end of the table, and it looks like his head is between my legs. So I start moaning, "Oooh, Mike, yeah, that's the way, baby." But, I'm doing it really loud, and everyone in the place is looking (we are on Gay Street). Mike takes his cup, rams it between my legs, gets out from under the table, and while I'm hunched over in pain, pulls out the back of my shorts, and pours his soda in.

It was cold.

I jumped up, grabbed my soda, and chased him down the stairs screaming the whole time. Everyone in the place was staring at us as Mike nearly smashed through the glass doors onto the street. People in the restaurant pressed their faces to the window expecting to see a murder right there in front of them.

I chased Mike into an alley, and after a few twists and turns, he ended up in a dead end. We stood there panting for a while, staring at each other. Finally I told him we could do it the easy way, or the hard way.

"What's the easy way?"

"Down the back."

"What's the hard way?"

"Down the front."

He turned around, and held out the back of his jeans, and I poured my soda right in, ice and all.

We headed back and met up with our friends. We were limping, out of breath, and walking funny from the ice. We were wet already from the boats, so that didn't matter.

Our next stop was the mall.

It's a nice, upscale mall, right there by the harbor. We walked in as a mob, started causing trouble right away. We ended up on the third floor. I was jumping up and down trying to break the glass block tile floor, and everyone else was looking over the railing trying to talk someone into walking across this I-Beam that stretched from the ledge we were on, and thirty feet across to the far wall. It's twenty five feet off the ground, and twelve inches wide. Needless to say, no one wanted to try it.

So they turned to me. Now, I'm afraid of heights, and told them so. There was no way I was going to step onto it. Then Bill double-dog-dared me.

So I'm halfway across this beam, getting closer to the far wall with every step, and trying really hard not to look down. I hear a voice above me yell, "Hey, you!" I look up, and on the fourth floor is a security guard yelling into a radio, "Got a guy on the third floor with black hair and orange sneakers." I finally look down, and see four more security guards rushing up the stairs. I inch my way back toward my friends, and as I try to climb over the railing, Bill keeps pushing me back onto the beam telling me I haven't touched the wall, and can't come back over.

I finally pushed past him, and grabbed this girl Robin as my hostage. My theory was, if I'm with a girl, they're less likely to tackle me, and more likely to just walk me out. I see the guards are almost at the top of the stairs, so I loop around to the down escalator. In order for them to get to me now, they have to swing all the way around the third floor and come in behind me. We get to the second floor, and I can see the security guys just starting down the escalator above me. Robin decides to stop and wait for her friends, and I power walk to the bottom of the escalator, and out the front doors, mere feet in front of the guards. The rest of our group finally decided to leave, right after they got thrown out.

We clamber back on the bus, and back into our same seats. I'm sitting besides Bill, and as the bus driver is doing a head count, Bill places his McDonalds cup in my lap, leans over and begins bobbing his head up and down with the straw making that annoying squeaking sound. The bus driver is still counting, and when he gets to our row, he stops dead. Bill sits up holding the cup, and, looking as innocent as he can, starts sipping his soda quietly. Needless to say, the bus driver lost count, and had to start all over again.

(Taking a nap on the bus)

Our next stop was our hotel in DC. The girls and boys were separated by floors, to curb any potential problems, and each chaperone was situated by the elevator in the hopes of catching us trying to sneak by. Yeah, right.

As soon as we're in our rooms, we start planning the panty raid. We get two empty 2 liter bottles of Pepsi, and an empty shampoo bottle, and fill them with water. We punched a hole in the caps of the soda bottles, so if we squeeze them, water sprays out. We also had three shields in the form of the metal lids from the food cart. We were ready. The attack is set for 8:00 that night.

Our next activity is going into every girls room as a group, pushing open the door, and all jumping on the beds, one on top of each other, then running into the next room to do it again. A few times I ended up on the bottom, thought I was going to suffocate.

The plan was to case out the rooms while figuring out which girls were in which rooms so we knew where to attack later.

The chaperones had set up games and stuff for us to play, Trivial Pursuit, etc., and while everyone was playing them, I was wandering around and looking for something to do.

I turned a corner, and ran into five girls from my class who began to touch me, and rub their hands on me, and otherwise get real friendly, if you know what I mean. One of them asked what I was doing, and I told her I was just wandering. Another girl asked if the boys were planning a panty raid tonight, and I told them that we hadn't even thought of it. Yet another girl asked me what time a panty raid might happen IF we had been planning it. And I told her 8:00.

Then they all walked away. I mean, hey, me, five girls who seemed hot for me two minutes ago? It could happen. Instead, I got played like a patsy. Oh, well.

At 7:45 we regrouped back in one of our rooms, and got ready for the raid. I didn't tell anyone about what happened in the hallway, in fact, I didn't tell anyone for years to come (and when I finally did, I got the crap beat out of me for being a traitor to the male race). We got our gear ready, psyched ourselves up, opened the door, and ran right into Mr. Stein. He was stopping by to see if we wanted to play Trivial Pursuit.

"Maybe Later," we replied as we tried to look innocent and hide all our stuff.

We finally sneak onto the girls floor, walk to the first door, and barge in screaming.

Empty.

We move onto the second door, barge in screaming.

Empty.

Third door we just kind of yell as we open.

Empty.

The fourth door we opened while mumbling among ourselves.

Empty.

By now we're figuring that they must all be playing Trivial Pursuit.

The fifth door we open just because we have to check them all.

Empty.

The sixth door we open just to make sure they're all empty.

Ten girls are waiting for us when we open the door. They're armed with shaving cream cans with aerosol nozzles so they spray, water balloons, you name it. Apparently they planned for this before they left Bayside as opposed to us putting it together as we went. They grabbed Mike, stripped him down to his underwear, and covered him from head to toe is shaving cream. We all started yelling, "Retreat!!!" Someone asked what we should do about Mike, and I replied, "Leave him and run!"

Mike told me later that they kept hitting him with water balloons, and covering him in shaving cream until Mrs. Jaffe came up to see why no one was at the game downstairs. No boys were allowed in the girls room, so they hid him behind the curtain. He said he made a six foot, two inch stain in the curtain, and the only part of him showing was his sneakers and jeans bunched up around his ankles.

Mrs. Jaffe asked, "There aren't any boys in here, right?"

The girls told her, "Of course not." She looked around for a while and then left.

Mike wasn't returned to us until about 10:00. To this day we're not sure what went on during his capture.

When Mike finally did return, my friend Wally and I were hanging out discussing sneaking out to get beer. I told him to go right ahead. I was going to wander around in the girls rooms for a while. I started getting ready to take a shower and pulled off my pants, when I noticed Mike and Wally looking at me funny. My first thought was, "Oh, no, they're gay."

They jumped me. Wally put me in a full-nelson, and they dragged me into the hallway. They stood me in front of the elevator, and Mike pressed the button. We hear the "ding" meaning that the doors are about to open, and Mike pulled my shirt up to my neck. Now, I'm basically standing in just a pair of funky colored, strange looking bikini underwear.

The doors open on the elevator, and standing inside are four girls in catholic school garb and a pizza delivery guy facing the other way.

The girls' jaws gape open, and the pizza guy turns around. I say, in my most casual tone (as if this happens to me everyday), "So, how about that Bears game?"

The doors close to the squeals of laughter as I wriggle myself out of Wally's grip.

Ha ha, very funny, I go back to my room and get in the shower.

About five minutes into my shower, I hear the door to the bathroom get slammed open. My friend, and I use the term loosely, John, runs up and pulls back the shower curtain. Standing in front of me is Mike holding a camera, and taking pictures like mad. I grab the curtain, and pull it closer to my body, as I reach for the shampoo bottle. I spray Mike with the shampoo, covering him, and the camera. They run, laughing out of the bathroom. I grabbed a towel, and ran after Mike.

Now, I think we all know that most hotel towels barely fit around your waist, and trying to run while wearing them is no easy task.

I chased Mike from the 6th floor, to the lobby, to the pool, to the 9th floor, to the dining room, then back to the 6th floor. Mike passed by Bill in the hallway. Bill was stoned off his ass, and lucky to still be standing. Mike told me later that he handed the roll of film to Bill, and kept running still carrying the camera. I passed by Bill, and didn't even look twice at him. I continued to chase Mike to the 4th floor, back to the lobby, and then up to the 5th floor. On the 5th floor, Mike ran into a group of about a dozen catholic school girls sitting in the hallway. He stopped in front of them, panting, and said, "Naked pictures...guy behind me...this roll of film," held the camera up, then he ran into the stairs. I come running up asking, "Which way did he go?"

One girl yelled out, "That's the guy from the elevator," and they all started laughing.

I jump into the staircase, and couldn't find Mike for the rest of the night.

I went back to my room, got dressed and went looking for that roll of film.

My first stop was Mikes room. He was paired up with another guy named Jason who spent the entire weekend in the room with his girlfriend under the covers. I walk in real quietly, averting my eyes, and look around for the film. I don't see it, so I ask myself, "If I was Mike, where would I hide it?" I lift the bag out of the trash can, and under it lies the camera. First try, damn, I'm good. The only problem is that there's no film in it. I leave the lens on the counter with a note saying, "I know where you live!", and leave.

At about midnight, I sneak up to the girls rooms to hang out. I knock, and the door creaks open a hair. I push my way in, and all my friends are up here hanging out. We hang out for a while, when there's another knock on the door. It's Mrs. Jaffe, and she wants to know what all the noise is about.

Mike runs and hides behind the curtain, I crawl under the blankets, Kevin crawls under the bed, Bill put a lampshade on his head, and stood in the corner (no joke, he really did), and John had no place to go, so he jumped in the bathroom and locked the door.

Mrs. Jaffe walks in, looks around and says, "There aren't any boys in here, right?"

The girls all say no, so Jaffe starts to walk out.

She stops at the bathroom, knocks on the door, and asks who's in there.

John, in his best falsetto, answers, "Just me."

Jaffe leaves.

The next day we get to tour DC. They give us a choice, The Washington Monument, or The Smithsonian Museum. Big stick in the ground, or a museum we can wreck? So, we all get on the bus for the Smithsonian.

As we exit the bus, six of us (Mike, Jason, Robin, Harisha, Kami, and me) make a mad dash, and run off. We end up at this place called The Pavilion at the Old Post Office, or something like that. It's basically this really nice mall in the middle of DC. We wander around for a while, trying to keep our havoc wreaking to a minimum, when we all decide to get some food. We all get on line at this Gyro stand in the food court, and Mike had never had a gyro before, so I told him he had to try it. The guy at the register asked us what we wanted to drink, and we all ordered sodas. Except for Mike, who mumbled under his breath, "Bud." The guy asked him to repeat that, and again Mike mumbled, "Bud." So the guy gave him a 20 oz. Budweiser.

In unison, we all looked at what Mike had done, looked at the guy behind the counter, and started screaming, "I'll take a Bud, change this to a Bud, I changed my mind, I'll take a Bud also..." and on and on.

For some reason, I don't remember why, Mike paid for all our Buds, and it was agreed that we would each buy a round afterwards.

We sat down in the food court, ate, and drank, and tried to keep to ourselves so we wouldn't get into trouble.

Each time we finished our beers, the next person at the table would buy a new round. By the time it was my turn (I was sitting next to Mike), everyone was so wasted that I told them, no, I bought the last round; it's Mike's turn again.

Before we could get too far into our sixth beer, an announcement came over the loudspeakers telling everyone that the Washington DC girls dance company would now be performing on the stage in the food court. Girls from the ages of 6 to 16 started dancing on the stage, and we're all wearing beer goggles (some for the first time).

At the tables all around us were these girl's parents and families. Here we are screaming, "Skin to win, Mama!! Take it ALL off!", and singing along to the song they were dancing to. Most of the songs we didn't know, but when they started dancing to "You spin me round" by Dead Or Alive we went nuts.

A little while later we all needed to find a rest room. No easy task in an unfamiliar mall. When we finally meet up again in the hallway, I noticed a bank of light switches on the wall. Now, in New York, they would never leave a set of light switches where just anyone can get to them unless they are the type you need a key for to turn on or off, so I figured they weren't light switches, they must be for something else. I reached over and turned off about seven switches at once. And part of the floor we were on went dark.

We ran out into the street giggling like madmen, and trying to find the Smithsonian. About twenty minutes later we were running through the hall of the museum looking for a bathroom again.

We got back on the bus and instantly passed out. The bus went touring through all the great sights in DC, but we missed them all.

Our next stop was a Chuckie Cheese. For those that have never been, it's a theme restaurant for little kids. Lots of games, and music, and a stage with these animatronic dancing redneck bears.

Bill was stoned (again), and spent the entire time refusing to eat because he wanted to watch the bears.

Mike was starting to feel sick from all the beer and gyro, so he stayed near Bill.

One guy we were with had a fake ID, and bought a pitcher of beer. A few of us sat away from the rest of the group drinking it until we noticed a cop walk in and approach what we guessed was the manager. The manager guy pointed at us and the cop came walking over. As soon as the cop was blocked from sight by a dancing bear, we downed the beer, and tossed the pitcher under another table to get rid of all the evidence. The cop came over, looked at us, and walked away.

Back at the hotel later that night, we opened the connecting door between our room and the next and found Glen (the A typical high school nerd) passed out on his bed above the covers, with his hands in the front of his pants, and his glasses (Coke bottle thick, but sans tape holding them together) resting on his forehead as he snored away. I couldn't even tell you how many pictures were taken of him there, or how many girls we had sneak to the side of his bed to have their pictures taken with Glen. It was a hoot. Of course, then we had to pour warm water on his crotch and run away. We just had to.

I went to visit Mike to see if I could sneak the roll of film out of him, and found him sick in his room. Jason and his girlfriend had locked themselves in the bathroom, and John was tending to Mike. Mike made a sound like he was going to puke, and John didn't see the trash can next to the bed. The only trash can around (as far as John could see) was the one full of beer cans and ice. John grabbed the trash can, turned to launch the contents into the bathtub, just as Mike started ralfing. The bathroom door was closed, and the beer and ice splashed off the door covering John, and most of the room. Now John thinks there's vomit all over the place also because he didn't get the trash can there in time. Actually Mike had a trash can, and was puking into it.

Later on, I was in my room watching TV, when Wally, Jason and Kevin dragged Bill in. They asked me to leave so they could talk to him in private, and I told them to go to hell.

"MY room, and I'm watching the Dukes Of Hazard. If you want privacy, go somewhere else."

They decided to let me stay. It seems that Bill has been dating three different girls at the same time, and all of them are here in the hotel. I can only assume that these guys are interested in some of those girls, because they wanted Bill to break up with two of them right now. They kept asking him to make a choice, and he just looked at them through bloodshot and squinting eyes. Apparently I was the only one in the room (besides Bill) that knew Bill was stoned (again). Bill made some kind of non-committal grunt that everyone took to mean he would pick one girl tonight. It sounded to me like he cleared his throat.

They left to go to the girls rooms and hang out, and wanted to know if I would join them later. I said I would, and went back to them crazy Duke boys.

Half hour later, Robin stopped by to see what I was up to.

Now, Robin and I had been having this crazy high school trip affair for a while now. We were both in steady relationships back home, but neither of our "others" came on these trips. We never actually did anything, we were just really good friends. We always slept in the same bed (dressed in some way), and we conserved water by showering and bathing together (with swimsuits on). We had never even kissed, but my male friends, and her female friends all thought we were having this torrid love affair. Believe me, we had both thought about it, just never gotten around to it. I would never cheat on my girlfriend, and she would never cheat on her man. But that night, we were both drunk, me for the first time.

Before anyone gets all pissed off at me for being typical male scum, let me ruin the ending by saying that nothing happened. It's why nothing happened that makes it worth reading.

She went to her room, and came back in this one piece pajama outfit with buttons down the front. We got into bed, and I started giving her a massage.

She's practically asleep from it, so I crawled behind her on the bed so we were "spooning". I put my arm around her and started unbuttoning her pajamas.

Unbeknownst to me, in the room directly above ours, John was making a running jump at the bed. He landed, and the bed collapsed.

I've got about four buttons open and I'm almost asleep in the process, when I hear what I think is a door slam (actually, the bed upstairs collapsing). I look up, startled fully awake, and look at the door. In the doorway I see someone standing there looking at me. Robin is still sound asleep, so I start whispering to whoever is by the door, "I didn't touch her. I swear. I was just sleeping here...." as I button her pajamas again. I roll over and pretend to sleep, every so often looking over to see if the person has left yet. They hadn't, so all I can think is that I'm dead when this person tells my girlfriend.

When I woke up the next morning, I looked over at the door and realized what I had been scared of. It was my jacket hanging on a hook in front of the door. Oh well.

John ended up fixing the bed he broke back to new with nothing but a wire hanger, so for the rest of the day we called him McGuyver.

On Sunday, we packed up and went to Kings Dominion in Virginia. We rode the rides, and tried our luck at the games, made a music video in this little recording studio thing they had, and all in all had a great day. After we returned to Bayside, things went back to normal. Graduation was coming closer, and a lot of us would never see each other again.

(Posing at Kings Dominion.)

Of course, this is only my story. I'm sure other people did other crazy things that I'll never know about. Forty some odd people went on this trip, and this story really only mentions about a dozen.

We took one of the pictures of Glen (the nerd), and slipped it into this girl Jamie's notebook with a note on the back. We knew that Glen liked her and figured this would be a fun little prank. Typical note, blah blah blah, I really like you, blah blah blah, here's a photo for you to keep of me, blah blah blah, maybe we can go to the prom together, Love Glen.

She flipped out, and started making U-turns when she saw him coming down the hall towards her. Someone finally turned me in, and she beat the crap out of me.

So, we didn't get to go where we wanted to, but I think we made the most of a bad situation.

No one died (a few people almost did, me included, but that doesn't count), no one really did anything too embarrassing (except maybe for John and his girlfriend fighting continuously, and very loudly for the entire trip), no one got too sick (except maybe for when we convinced Mike to smoke a cigar we bought him from a novelty shop, and it was actually filled with shredded newspapers), no one suffered any permanent mental breakdown (except maybe Bill who's brain has never quite been the same after all that pot he smoked that weekend), and no one ever got in trouble. Of course, until now, no one knew the whole story of what went on.......

 

-Spat 3/26/97

 

If you have any questions, E-Mail me. Spat@spat-nospam-cave.com