show me the dollar first

Matt and I went on Spring Break. We're both a little old for it (some more than others), and Matt hasn't even been in school for more than a decade, but who's gonna pass up an opportunity to get a tan and not worry about anything but a hangover for a week?

We flew to Ft. Lauderdale on a Thursday evening. I brought my math book and I actually did some integration problems on the flight. I was being optimistic that while Matt was working (he didn't actually tell his work that he was leaving town and would be talking conference calls and emails during the first few days of our trip) that I would be studiously doing calculus problems by the pool. Fat chance. I never got up much before noon, made it to the pool around 1:30, and happy hour was at three. I wasn't about to turn down free banana daquiris in favour of fucking L'Hopital's rule.

Anyway, we landed, got our luxurious, blue Chrysler Sebring convertible (South Florida's official car, if you can't afford a yellow Lambourghini) and checked into our trips first (but not last) clothing-optional gay resort. It was called Elysium, it was very nice and I don't have tonnes more to say about it.

But...

That night we went to meet one of Matt's friend's who recently moved to Lauderdale from Boston. He told us to meet him at a place called Georgie's Alibi because it was long island ice tea night. Ugh. The fact that we were going to long island ice tea night caused rise in attitude that was not abated by the fact that when we got to the bar I saw that it was in a strip mall. Florida. Class all the way. The long island ice teas themselves did manage to sunny up my mood a bit though. They were electric blue, served in gigantic mason jars and they cost three dollars. Three dollars! Apparently there's no law in Ft. Lauderdale preventing you to from serving two liters of alcohol at a time, or from taking said beverage outside to smoke.

So there I was, a cartoonishly large mason jar full of windex-coloured hooch, cigarette dangling from my mouth, wandering around a strip mall parking lot. That's when I ran into our flight attendant. He was wasted (as I would soon be after only my second three-dollar monstrosity) but pleasant and we all had a good laugh at how gay a profession attending flights is.

This is already getting long eh? And I've only covered the first night. I'll try a whittle it down to two more installments; tomorrow and the next day.