SPRING BREAK
part one

*updated at 4:40pm*

It's that time of year again. Since I don't get spring break anymore (being gainfully employed has its DISadvantages), I decided to recount some of my most memorable spring breaks.

10th grade
My church youth group went to Chicago for spring break that year. I don't recall doing any type of missions work so I'm not sure why we went but it was definitely a trip to remember. The drama started before I even left home. Of course I waited until the last minute to get spending money from my dad. He sent me to the bank early Saturday morning to cash a check. All the ladies at the bank know my dad and for some reason, assumed that I must have forged the check because what man in his right mind would give his child a check for $250 (or however much it was). They actually said it didn't look like his signature and called my house to verify that he'd given me the check! After much ado, I got my money and met up with our group. The thing that stands out in my mind the most about the drive is that we played Mary J Blige (the first album) over and over. I'm not sure how my youth pastor stood it. Imagine a bunch of kids cooped in a church van singing along to the same one album for twelve hours...

The next highlight was going to the new mall in the area - Water Tower Place. They had a Guess store so like any 16 year old with large amounts of money, I spent most of it on two pairs of Guess shorts - purple walking shorts and peach booty shorts. (Incidentally, the peach pair of shorts was stolen a few months later by one of my older brothers many girlfriends.) That's right, I spent most of my money on my first day in town. Naturally, I decided to call my dad to see if he would send me some more. But my mean old youth pastor wouldn't let me! Some crap about being responsible. Feh. Of course it never crossed my mind to just take the shorts back.

The next night we went to Malnati's to have some authentic deep dish pizza. Our dinner was really "special" because one of the girls ate so much pizza that she threw up...on the table. Ugh. That didn't ruin our appetites though. We all ordered chocolate chip pizza (a big cookie baked in a pizza pan) for dessert. My youth pastor decided to take pity on me (or maybe it was his twisted sense of humor). He gave me a chance to make some money since I'd spent most of mine and he wasn't allowing me to call my dad. He offered me $30 to eat the chocolate chip pizza with a bunch of that pizza pepper (whatever the multicolor stuff in the shaker is) on it. Of course, I jumped at the chance to earn a little spending money.

Well, I ate it. The.whole.thing. Needless to say, calling what happened next bubble guts would be the understatement of the year. I was moaning and groaning all that night and praying for the Lord to take me home. Who knew all that pepper would literally set my stomach afire...and my intestines...and my booty when all that crap (no pun intended) finally passed. My youth pastor was laughing his head off. But he did pay me my money.

Next up, getting some "culture". Our youth pastor dropped us off at Field Museum and said he'd be back in a few hours. Great, stranded in a boring museum when you got no sleep the night before. (You know we stayed up all night acting a fool and being mad the girls and guys were forced to sleep in different rooms.) So we decided we'd just sleep until it was time to get picked up. We scoured the museum until we found a bench big enough for all us and settled in for our nap. It was great - except for the fact that the museum people apparently don't like you to sleep on the benches so they hustled us along. Now what were we going to do? We were dog-tired and it was still hours until we could leave. We wandered aimlessly until we hit the jackpot - a room with a whale video - dark, quiet and rows of chairs to stretch out on. We all claimed a row but there was one small catch. So as not to arouse suspicion, someone would have to keep pressing the button to start the video. So there we slept, taking turns pressing the button, just like those jokers on Lost. LOL. Ever try to sleep to the sound of mating whales? It's not easy. The jackpot ran out though. One of the guys was startled from his sleep by a particularly loud whale noise and yelled. Some busta museum dude came to investigate all the noise, saw us sleeping and proceeded to kick us out (of the room, not the museum). Of course, this was the precise moment when our youth pastor (who'd been looking for us) found us. Needless to say, he was not pleased.

I'm sure the rest of the week was no picnic for our youth pastor. I don't know if he enjoyed it or felt we got anything out of the trip but we sure did have fun!