It's finally springtime. This week, throngs of students charged through the fresh mud, barely managing to balance their bundles of clothes, care packages and the occasional bottle of liquor swiped from Mommy and Daddy's cabinet, to return to their homes away from home in our tiny corner of New Hampshire. Amidst the masses, there can be spotted a number of students whose marked difference from their classmates is immediately evident. I refer not to the seven people at Dartmouth who are really, really, ridiculously good looking, (nor to the 3,000 who think they are really, really, ridiculously good looking) but rather to those who have returned sporting brand new suntans. And we can safely assume that these lucky students owe their glowing complexions (or semi-permanent epidermal blisterings) to a spring break trip.
Every year in March and April, college students stampede down to the nether regions of our continent to engage in sun-drenched, liquor-soaked "relaxation." In my five years running of MTV-style spring break trips, I have never come back well-rested. Unless by well-rested, we mean completely dehydrated, sunburned and lacking one-third of the undergarments I'd brought down with me. I take it we also don't mean feeling like I was just hit by an 18-wheeler that happened to be transporting grotesque quantities of tequila and scotch (I'm such a hard guy), which the generous driver decided to give to me as a peace offering after running me over.
No, the spring break draw does not seem to be the promise of a peaceful setting for spiritual rejuvenation. Perhaps it has something to do with the Earth's magnetic pull and the distance to the planet's core being greatest at the equator, thus justifying mass southerly migrations from the Northern hemisphere. But since I just made that up, it probably has more to do with the fact that people tend to engage in promiscuous sexual activity on spring break trips.
As a friend of mine in the Class of 2006 told me, "Last spring break I went to Acapulco. I brought back my girlfriend and an STD, though I'm not sure which one I acquired first."
After asking several senior men about their experiences on spring break, my suspicions were confirmed.
One exclaimed, "Spring break's the best. Everyone acts slutty and nobody cares 'cause everyone's too wasted to remember it anyway. Normally, I'm pretty bad at getting people to come home with me, but on spring break, I barely even have to try."
One junior female recounting her trip to Puerto Rico last year told me that she woke up one morning having no memory of the previous evening's events. She looked around her room to find relics of her missing night, including a stranger's t-shirt and one of his sandals. On her nightstand was a large caricature drawing of her and her gentleman suitor feasting on some tacos, presumably drawn by a street artist at some ungodly hour.
"At least he looked kind of cute," she told me.
This year's spring break extravaganza brought me down to the paradise city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I and 17 other ladies shacked up in a pimp-ass villa built into a mountain overlooking the ocean. It was sickies. Our first night there, after a casual dinner for 18, we went out and hit the bars. Within five minutes of our entry to The Zoo, a bar with a packed dance floor, zebra-print decor and large elevated cages in which patrons can dance, Lindsay '08 (last name withheld so as to evade future Google stalkers/employers) appeared to have sprouted from her face a new appendage, which, upon further inspection, turned out to be a tall Asian fellow named Doug hailing from Nevada, who had super-glued himself to her lips. Having left my adhesive-remover in my other purse, the pair remained thusly entwined until we all returned back to our villa and the antidote (a house filled with more estrogen than an *NSYNC concert) was applied.
Later in the week, the larger portion of a fraternity from Cornell came over to check out our digs. We had a hot tub on our roof deck and a miscommunication resulting in the purchase of double the planned amount of liquor. Debauchery ensued. Or maybe that was just "relaxation." I'm not sure on spring break there's any difference. In any event, comforted by the mantra of "What goes on in [insert spring break destination here] stays in [destination]," SB seems an open invite to leave your inhibitions behind and make like Girls Gone Wild. The content of your RSVP is up to you, but if you do choose to indulge, be advised that by the end you'll need a vacation.
