Booze Cruise

I was within days of my graduation. The celebrations were in full effect. Everyone was attending every senior event until it felt like graduation was just another item to cross off the itinerary.

This also meant that I was nearing the time for my school’s Senior cruise around Manhattan, otherwise known as the booze cruise.

The school rents a ferry boat and serves the seniors alcohol for the night as we drive around the various New York City landmarks, dancing the night away. Naturally, everyone I knew was in attendance.

On the bus ride over, a woman addressed us directly.

“There is an open bar,” she explained.

“WOO!” I shouted and only one other person joined in.

“…But please drink responsibly,” she added, looking dead at me.

Drink responsibly I did, although that could not be said about everyone around me. More than once, I was with a friend as they swayed perilously close to the railing and had to grab it for support.

Staying in the boat and not landing in the East River was my don’s advice to me. He said that I was not likely to fall in due to inebriation but just leaning too far over the edge to see something. He knows me so well.

I stayed on the boat with my friends, downing some bottom shelf liquor in plastic bottles as we circled around the Statue of Liberty and made our way underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a dancefloor with a DJ who was having a love affair with Pitbull.

This was a welcome change, coming on the heels of an excruciating week in which I had to forgo a graduation trip to the Adirondacks with friends in exchange for a much-needed extension on two essays.

Strangely, I would have much preferred to go to the Adirondacks with my friends instead of staying in the library to work on my 10-15 page essay about the usage of the Bible in western literature, which eventually became a comparison of the various Hogwarts houses in Harry Potter. Remaining chained to a desk at the library when I could have been out spending the weekend with friends was not how I expected to end my senior year of college, but circling Ellis Island at night with my friends wasn’t what I had anticipated either, and oh, was it a delightful send off!