booze, beads, and a broken toe... SPRING BREAK 2011

Throughout college I always heard of friends who went on various spring break adventures from coastline to coastline, but I never actually went on a spring break of my own.  Regardless of the reasons, my friend Elle convinced me to take the spring break I never had.  Destination--Key West, FL.  So a few weeks ago we packed up, filled a cooler with an assortment of deli meats, danish, and junk food, made sure we had an endless supply of 5-Hour Energy drinks, and set off on our road trip down the east coast.  We drove from MA to NJ and spent the night at her aunt's house, then from NJ to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and met up with my other friend at 3am in the sketchiest Days Inn I've ever experienced, and then from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West.  The drive seemed to fly by as I kept myself busy "checking in"on Facebook every time we entered a new state, and towards the end, a new key.

The island was gorgeous!  I kept wanting to tuck-and-roll out of the CRV because we were surrounded by beautiful turquoise water and an excess of sunshine.  We went to Key West because there was a band down there that we knew and we were pumped to see them; but after we couldn't get through to them right away when we got there, we decided to check in early.  No sooner did we unpack the car, when we were changed into bathing suits and making drinks.  Then we decided it'd be a brilliant idea to rent bikes for the week to get around the island...   word of advice: rent the mopeds, not the bikes.  We were trying to be safe thinking that if we drank, we wouldn't be able to drive the mopeds.  But our bruised asses beg to differ.  Regardless, we rode around the maze of streets trying to find Duval St. where we'd be seeing the band, and people down there are really friendly, willing to help...

Me: (bike stopped at the corner of somewhere and somewhere) "Where the hell is Duval?!  It's 1 o'clock and I'm not drinking yet!!!"

Bystander: "You girls need some help?"

Me: "Yes!  Point me to the bars!!"

Elle: "...We're looking for Duval..."

Bystander 2: "Just go all the way down here, take a right, and you'll see it!"

Me: "Yayyyy booze!!  Thank you!!!"  

Still, took us an additional 20 minutes to find the place, but eventually we made our way to Cowboy Bill's, where we quenched our thirst and then some.  This is where we found ourselves most days & nights, as we made friends with several bartenders on a first-name basis.  This benefited us greatly, as I was able to request whatever concoction I wanted.  Gin, Tequila, Rum, Vodka, strawberry & pineapple all in one?  No problem.  Have 5.  

St. Patty's Day?  Have as much green beer as you want.

Each day was more or less like this:

Scuba divers.  In our pool.
In case you didn't believe me.

• Wake up, put bathing suit on, go out to pool, lay in sun for an hour.  (except for one time when there was a group of scuba divers in our pool...I was a little awked out by that)
• Change, get lunch, head down to Duval, drink heavily.
• Wander Duval, angrily wondering why everyone has mardi gras beads, or St. Patty's Day beads, but you.  (seriously, a billion t-shirt shops but not one place that sold beads! I NEEDED BEADS!)
• Dinner, shower, channel your inner Snooki or J-Woww, and head out to Cowboy Bill's for dancing, more booze, and the occasional "sexy mechanical bull ride competition" (absolutely under no circumstances did any of us participate!! C'mon, we have to have some class.  Still, it was entertaining to watch skanks & ho's fall on their faces topless!)
• Avoid chickens and roosters wherever we wandered.  They're as common down there as squirrels and chipmunks are up here.

If I had to pick one night to describe in detail though, it'd have to be the last night we were there, which is what the title of this post was named after.  =)

On this particular morning, we all got up with the intention of going to the beach, but my friend Heather and I were the only ones that eventually made it over.  While Elle was out doing her thing, we got some sun, and then decided to have lunch at Margaritaville.  I learned in the last few days that if I started drinking early in the day and stopped, I always got tired, and it took much, much more alcohol to even feel anything later on in the night.  So when I started sipping my green margaritas over lunch, I made the decision that I wasn't going to stop, plain and simple.  

After a couple margaritas and a sandwich later, we headed over to meet up with Elle at Cowboy Bill's.  I was very excited to see Elle, who immediately accused me of "already being drunk."  Too bad Sally, one of our bartenders we made friends with, blew Elle's cover by letting us know she had already fed Elle like 5 drinks or so.  Don't you love silly drunk friends who project their inebriation onto others?  Anyway, I ordered my toxic drink mixture and we sat in as the band we went to see played their acoustic set before their show that night.  

Fast forward many drinks and a few hours later...we're back at the hotel where Heather and I are to shower and get ready, and Elle & the guitarist of the band were going out for dinner.  They peace out, and I decide it's the best idea in the world to go swimming one last time in the pool because it'll "feel awesome being drunk!"  Ladies... I never thought I'd understand why girls go wild during spring break, but in the midst of taking a dip, some douche-bag was chilling outside of his hotel room and I thought it was appropriate to flash him at that very moment.  Warning: this wasn't the last time I pulled a stunt like this.

Walking back into the hotel room after swimming, I entered our dark room and immediately whacked my foot into the side of a guitar case that I didn't know was there.  Hurt. Like. A. Bitch.  But I've stubbed my toe before, didn't think much of it. Plus I was still drunk, and determined to take a shower.  Hair and makeup done perfectly an hour later, my foot still hurt.  I looked down to see this:

Broken toe.  Holler.

Bad Decision: Drinking so much that you blindly walk into your hotel room and break your toe.

Better Bad Decision: Continuing to drink so much that you hardly feel it, thereby guaranteeing a good night of dancing.

Yeah....ouch.  Whatever-- it was t-shirt time and I had a shirt that screamed J-Woww.  Elle arrived and changed, I downed a 5-Hour Energy, and we were off to the bar!  

Making friends with the bartenders is a highly recommended thing.  I felt like the whole night we were VIP.  Mandy, the other bartender, who by the way, I ended up texting all week, was fantastic at making sure our glasses were never empty and continually sent the shooter girl over to us for red lobsters and washington apples.  I line-danced, and a few men showed me how to actually two-step.  It was bizarre to dance with people where the guy actually knew what he was doing and led you, instead of grinding up on your ass with his bulge.  The whole night was going awesome, we were all feeling great, and then Heather slammed down her cup in an angry fashion.  We knew the night was taking a twist.

Guess the alcohol hit poor Heather all at once, and she was having an episode of beer tears and indecisiveness as to whether she wanted to leave or stay.  It took a while trying to get through to her, but I got her to agree to let me get her back to the hotel.  I gave Elle my card in case I wasn't back to pay for the tab, and we hailed a pink taxi down to bring us back.  My plan was to get Heather into bed and take a taxi back to the bar, but things rarely go according to plan...

As soon as we got in the cab, Mr. Cabbie informed us that he could only take cash, no cards, as his machine had "just broken".  Yeah whatever.  So Heather had $13 cash, I figured it'd be enough to get us the 12 minute drive back to our hotel.  As we're driving, Mr. Cabbie is a bit of a chatty Kathy, and I discuss with him how he was apparently in the navy the last 10 years...and now drives a cab.  Simultaneously, I'm trying to keep up a conversation so he doesn't notice what I do--that Heather is spitting...which always leads to vomming.  And before you know it.... 

Mr. Cabbie: "Hey, is she throwing up back there?"

Me: "Um, no...don't worry about her."

Mr. Cabbie: "No, she's definitely throwing up."

Me: "Yeah, well it's not in your cab, so you don't need to worry about it!"

Yeah, she was throwing up... into her $500 purse to avoid a mess.  

So we got to the hotel and realized we didn't have enough cash to pay.  But I was drunk and on a mission, so I had the brilliant idea...

Me: "So we are short money for the fare... how about I give you a kiss and the money we have and you call it even?!"

Mr. Cabbie: "Are you serious?"

Me: "Yes!"

Mr. Cabbie: "Hah...okay!"

Little did I realize though that in our conversation, I had told the driver about my flashing episode earlier in the night.  He thought it'd be funny to ask for a replay of that.  I thought about it, and convinced myself that if I didn't, he'd be crazy and lock us in his cab and kidnap us. So I gave him a replay.  Bitches be running wild.

Got Heather up to our room and went into nursing mode.  Plopped Heather in front of the toilet and demanded she stayed there till I could clean her up.  I went after her purse trying to figure out what to do, and all I really could do was stand over the toilet, in front of Heather, hold said $500 purse to shower head, and pray it would magically be cleaned up.  She did manage to puke on only one side of the purse, whereas the contents of her purse were on the opposite side, so I was able to save her phone, wallet, etc.  

Bad Decision: Puking into $500 purse.

Better Bad Decision: Strategically aiming for an unoccupied section of the purse to puke in.

Well, some of the vom came out, but mostly the blue dye of the purse just went everywhere, and the tub clogged up with I don't even know (blue, vommity soup).  So I ignored that, got Heather cleaned up with a nice makeshift sponge bath, and put her to bed.  I cleaned up the whole bathroom except for the tub, because even after failed attempts of turning the ice bucket into a plunger and unclogging the drain, I couldn't do anything further.  I called Elle to let her know, because drunk me took back over and I was freaking out at the thought that she & Josh (guitarist) were going to come back to any kind of mess.  I felt like a failure for not handling the situation 100% and left her a voice mail full of sniffles.  

I had passed out on Elle's bed when they opened the door, and I immediately popped up and started bawling because I felt so bad that I couldn't take care of the tub, and I didn't want to ruin the night for anyone, and my mind was going a mile a minute.  Elle jumped on top of me, told me if I said "sorry" one more time she was going to bite my nipple off (no joke), and proceeded to squish me into a love sandwich with Josh on the other side.  She left me with Josh as she took care of the bathroom...I was trying so hard not to cry anymore that any word out of my mouth was an insanely high-pitched squeak, and then out of nowhere Josh throws 6 pairs of mardi gras beads (which I had been looking all around for ALL WEEK) around my neck!!

Me: "Josh I'm *squeak* SO SORRY ITRIEDTOCLEANEVERYTHINGUPIDIDN'TWANTTORUINTHISLASTNIGHT" *sniffle*

Josh: "Mander, it's okay!  Don't be sad..."

Me: *squeak* "ANDIHAVEMARDIGRASBEADS!!! MAN I LOVE YOU!  YOU'RETHEBEST!" *sniffle*

(minutes later)

Me: "Okay guys, I think I'm ok.  Thanks for calming me down, I'm going to go to bed."

But as soon as I jumped in bed in the dark, I noticed our guy friend was still wearing his hat, and I immediately had to remedy the situation by running over, telling him he still had his hat on, that I could see it, and took it off of his head.  I also thought it was important to help him take his pants off before going to bed.  

Josh: "Just remember to pull both pant legs at the same time!"

Me: "Yeah yeah....1...2...3!!! (as I almost flung back onto the ground)"

Thus concluded our last night.  I kept bragging about how the entire week I never woke up with a hangover, that it was "the magic of Key West"... funny how the magic wore off the last day.  We got up, packed, said our goodbyes, and drove on our merry way all the way back up to Mass.  

BTW there's a BP gas station in Jacksonville I highly recommend staying away from.  It was in the middle of nowhere, and as Elle was pumping gas, I went inside to use the ATM. As I was getting to it, a car of sketchies following me wanting to know my name, and what seemed to be a woman severely cracked out was standing next to the door.  The ATM was out of order.  We left very quickly.  (Remember to always avoid sketchies and rando's.)

Life Lesson: Normal rules of society need not apply when on spring break, but try to stay clear of blindly walking into things.  That way, your bones will stay intact, even if your dignity doesn't.

Life Lesson #2: Just because you flash people does not mean you'll get Mardi Gras beads.  (They come when you least expect them.)

Life Lesson #3: Next time, take an airplane.

I went to Key West and all I got was a lousy 

Spring Break 2011 Key West, FL t-shirt.

And some cool beads.

And a slight tan.

And a broken toe.

And a hangover.

And a whole new outlook on Girls Gone Wild.

LSLP, Amanda xo