I realllly just wanted to go swimming

I tried to tell everyone that I just wanted to go swimming at Mary Pat's after happy hour last night. Apparently some people thought it was a good idea. So good, in fact, that they decided to reserve the idea for tonight's after-prom activities, which I will be unable to attend. And I was fine with that. Really. Fine. But the result of that decision was that I ended up having a night that was...a milestone for me.

When it was clear that I was not going to be swimming that night, I decided to take a friend up on his offer to play beer pong at Gavin Park in Wilton with his friends. This friend and his friends are all a bit young...none of them are 21. His brother is 20 and has a fake ID so he was the one supplying the beer. No one from happy hour wanted to go with me, saying they didn't want to get in trouble if the police caught them drinking with underage kids. I foolishly mocked them and called them boring.

I turned to Ashley, my only hope, who I figured would love the opportunity for free beer, and who I also hoped was a little too drunk to be making rational decisions at this point. She looked at me with wary eyes and said she was afraid of what would happen to her if she was left in my sole custody. Mary Pat, Joy, and I laughed and pointed out that I rarely drink and am usually too responsible for my own good. Ashley did not seem reassured. Everyone left at this point but me and Ashley.

After one more beer and a little more coaxing, I got Ashley in the car and we headed up to Wilton. On the way past MP's, we did the obligatory honk. As we pulled into the empty park parking lot, I saw an older gentleman, a park employee, watering the pavement. Why he was working at 12:30am and why he was watering the parking lot instead of the grass I'll never know.

As I was driving in, I got a call from my Joe, the underage friend, who frantically whispered, "Keep driving! Get out of there! Meet me at my house!" He lives on the edge of the park and was walking back to his house. We pulled up and the kids told me they were waiting for the worker to leave so they could get started with the game. In this group of kids Ash and I met there was the set of brothers, the fat kid, the foreign exchange student from Chile, and the bad girl. I commented that I felt like I was in the movie Superbad. I'd only been there 5 minutes and it felt like the classic teen movie plot.

Eventually the man left and we headed into the park and they set up the cups on a picnic table under a fairly well lit pavilion and began to play. Ash and I were up second, against Joe and the fat kid, who was hilarious. Ash began the game by pouring water from the rinse cup into one of the drinking cups instead of beer. Everyone assumed she was severely drunk. I laughed and prayed on all that is holy that she was hustling. She proceeded to kick ass and won everyone's admiration.

15 minutes later, a car pulled up with the back hatch open. A kid jumped out and the car screeched to a stop. The kids we were with recognized him as a friend and were about to go over when two cars arrived. Navy blue with a yellow stripe down the side. Shit, shit, Shit!
Everyone froze and then everyone but Ash and me booked it for the edge of the woods about 150 yards behind the pavilion. We just smirked. I figured Ash and I had nothing to worry about, being over 21, but then I had a mental image of the sign I had seen driving into the park. "No Alchoholic Beverages Permitted." SHIT!

"Let's go!" I yelled at Ash, grabbed my heels and purse, and took off for the woods. Separating the pavilion and open field from the edge of the woods was a chain link fence. Crap. I am NOT good at jumping fences. Just two days before I had jumped a fence at my friend's apartment complex to swim in the pool after hours and he had practically had to push me over. Miraculously, this fence turned out to be much less of a problem. For me. Ashley was another story. She tried to swing her leg up to the top of the fence instead of sticking her feet into the links and climbing. She did get her leg over it, but then she was stuck, looking like a ballerina warming up for practice. One of the kids we were with graciously helped her, and I doubled over laughing as he shoved her over. On the other side of the fence, the fat kid stood there whimpering and clutching his boob. He kept saying, "I scraped my nipple off on the fence! My nipple is gone!"

We watched from the woods as the troopers talked to the car of kids, then all three cars slowly left. As we headed back, the fat kid got a call from the friend who had been pulled over who told us not to go back because the troopers were coming back for us. We took off again, across the soccer fields and away from the lights of the parking lot and pavilion. All except Ashley, who was bewildered as to all the fuss and was walking. I ran back, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along. She kept saying, "I don't understand! What's the big deal? Why are we running? I didn't come here to RUN!" All that was running through my head was, "I promised her I would take care of her! I promised nothing bad would happen!"

When we got close to the soccer fields she biffed it and we both laughed our asses off. The fat kid, who either has poor eyesight or was completely drunk, was wigged out by a garbage can in the dark and yelled, "Who is that? Who's there?"
We waited another ten minutes and then headed back to the pavilion to finish off the beer. The troopers had taken Ashley's cigs, my book of matches, and the cups we left on the table. The bad girl, who was obviously crazy or insanely brave, had snuck back to the pavilion while the troopers were preoccupied and saved the beer. She was a hero.

We put my iPod on in my car and the fat kid amazed us with his smooth dance moves. Ashley finally decided she had had enough and got in my car and put her seatbelt on. I figured that was a sign she wanted to leave, so I got in and we took off. Just before we were passing MP's, Ashley honked my horn and found the sound fascinating, so she continued to honk it periodically as we drove, even though there was a car in front of us. She also managed to honk it as we were passing MP's, although I don't think she knew where MP lived. (If you heard a horn at 3:30am, sorry Mary Pat!)

I got a call from Joe when we reached Ballston Spa. There were carnival rides set up in the park that apparently were going to be used today for a fair. Joe and his friends had gotten them to work and they were riding the swings and taking cotton candy from a vendor booth.

Last night marked the first time I have EVER run from the cops.