Accountabilibuddies

I was the exact opposite of Katie. Whereas she maximized her sleeping on vacation, I slept as little as possible. I was dressed and in the restaurant for breakfast every morning before she woke, and I was stumbling around the cabin looking for my flask and my bed long after she retired every night.

The second night, I quietly opened the cabin door and let as little light as possible into the room. I did the Zombie Walk—arms extended in front of me with my feet shuffling across the floor—so as not to trip over anything as I fumbled towards bed.

Katie sat up and turned her phone on. "It's 3:30 a.m.," she whispered to me.

"I shut down the boat!" I giggled.

I had my accountabilibuddies: people who made sure I got back to my room at the end of the night. They happened to be Harvey's husband and his older brother from Boston. It was the two married dudes who would party it up with me every night and dance with me in the discotheque and eat pizza with me at 2:30 every morning to soak up some of the alcohol.

And may I just say that having No Beer August seemed like a horrible disaster leading up to the trip, but really it built up my tolerance for liquor. Because when I drank on the boat and in Mexico, it was an easy, fun drunk. I had appeared to have overcome my difficulties with liquor. That and I drank rum and gin and definitely not vodka.

We were at the discotheque. I had a rum and Diet Coke in my hand. I'd get a Diet Coke from the bar and return to my room to add my rum. Harvey's Husband was ordering shot after shot of tequila. The Boston Brother was drinking beer. We surveyed the dance floor. It became Cougar Night when 10 women in their 40's and 50's started dancing.

"You know what we should do?" I asked the boys. "We should find you a stepmom tonight."

I giggled. There's a long backstory there, but they agreed.

The boys picked out the prettiest woman dancing. Of course. Of course! I picked out the woman who seemed to be having the most fun and was the most outgoing.

"Her," I pointed. "I want her."

"But what do we do?" asked Harvey's Husband. "It would be too weird to say, 'Hey, I think you should date my dad.'"

"Y'all have been married too long," I snorted. "You say, 'Dad, I think we should have breakfast together tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.,' and then you go up to her and say, 'It was fun hanging with you tonight. We should have breakfast together tomorrow. 9 a.m.' Voila!"

Tallahassee and his roommate approached us. We filled them in on the plan. Sure enough, Tallahassee walked straight to the woman (the pretty one, not the fun one—stupid boys) and tried to set the plan in motion. But the woman fled because she had no previous interaction with Tallahassee. Harvey's Husband had the in: he already danced with her.

Tallahassee pulled me aside and scolded me for not getting to the discotheque earlier in the evening. "Where have you been? I didn't think you were coming!"

"We found this lovely piano bar that had a sing along to the Beatles and Elton John and Billy Joel. It was awesome! We came here when that bar closed. This is our closer bar."

On key, Harvey's Husband tapped the inside of his left wrist with his first two fingers. "Closer bar," he confirmed. In baseball, the manager signs wild gestures to the players to convey strategy, one such being when to bring out the closing pitcher to finish the game. We had adopted the signal to convey to each other when to go to the discotheque to end the night.

After we had closed the second bar of the night, we headed to the 24-hour pizza restaurant. The rest of the partiers at the discotheque followed suit. The 20 or so of us laughed and made inappropriate jokes while we tried to lower our BACs with greasy dough. Harvey's Husband juggled the silverware to the cheers of the partiers. I dropped my pizza, screamed, "Man down!" and proceeded to eat the Boston Brother's leftovers.

After pizza the brothers, Tallahassee and I walked the boat in search for something else to do. We ran into a break dancer and his hookup for the evening and joined them. The six of us scoured everything, but the boat was shut down. The custodians were in full swing vacuuming and waxing the floors, getting the boat ready for the next morning. In defeat, we headed back to our rooms. Tallahassee walked with us. My supposed accountabilibuddies made excuses and left Tallahassee to walk me to my door, where he gave me a kiss goodnight. This time it was much better. I may have told him so.

I creaked the door to the cabin open, letting in as little light as possible and began the Zombie Walk.

"It's 3:30 in the morning."

"I shut down the boat! And I had the best time!"