A Play By Play

For about the first time in my life I was waking my parents up. Crazy, right? It was 4:45 and my parents were still stuck in bed, blissfully snoozing. When my dad finally woke up, I’m pretty sure he forgot about the “You shall be there no later than 5:30” warning, because as of 5:10 he was making a smoothie knowing full well that a) we had to be there by 5:30, and b) that it would take us 30 minutes to get to the airport. Naturally, I go to the best way to annoy a parent into getting what you want. Panicking. So there I am panicking and screaming at my dad that we are going to be late while he makes a morning smoothie. After nagging my slow dad for what felt like forever, he finally left the house with me and arrived at the airport. Late. So we go to the Southwest terminal, looking for my class or a chaperone. Not a single soul in sight. Dad makes me jump out of the car and scour the terminals for my class. As I’m about to lose hope, I spot a man running in a red plaid shirt. “James!” I scream, not even knowing if its him and risking the embarrassment of mistaking a random person for someone I know. The person turns their head and I can only think of the embarrassment if that’s not James. “Bryce?” James shouts back. I run back to my dad's crappy Camry, grab my bags, scold him for being late, and then tell him bye. I run into the Southwest terminal and spy my class chatting away. As it turns out Estelle was late too, and Miles was waiting on a sleeping bag to arrive. Jay tells me my hair is interesting in the most Jay way possible, to which I just smile, and I practice small talk with Sarah while I mark my stow away bag. 30 – 45 minutes later I took some Dramamine for the upcoming boat trip, and the class was boarding the plane. I don’t remember much about the plane trip because I was slipping in and out of consciousness when it came to sleep, except that there were really good pretzels, we were allowed soda, and that I had a great time playing with the lights for the seats that were in front of me (Sophia and whoever else was in front of me had no idea what was going on) After a grueling 60 minute plane ride of pure Dramamine induced sleep we boarded a crappy small bus based off of a retired work truck which smelled of McDonalds. I don’t remember much of that for the exact same reasons, but as soon as we got off I dropped onto some Astroturf and slept. Next was by far the worst, the boat ride. I didn’t sleep on it because I had already slept off all my Dramamine, and other people weren’t fairing very well because of a choppy ride. Jay (who gloriously happened to be sitting next to me) was the first and thankfully the only person who happened to hurl. I remember seeing every bit of his burrito onto the 90’s era lookalike floor. Cece also wasn’t faring well, as she was curled up into the corner of the boat. Nisrine and Fatima were near the open doors to the deck of the boat as the needed fresh air to not hurl. Others were just looking at the horizon, eating ginger chews, or doing whatever else to keep them from meeting Jays fate. Thankfully everyone survived, but I’m pretty sure nobody felt more glad to feel new sand than me.

~ Bryce