The Morning After: The Night I Rode a Private Plane…and Ended up in Jail

By Anonymous

[Everyone’s got a morning after story and we wanna hear yours! Send it over to us and we’ll post it – anonymously, of course – right here!]

Freshman year.  What’s there to say?  You go in with the best of intentions: not losing your scholarships, making the deans list, aiming for the toilet when you puke.

For me, the first few weeks of school went along like perfection.  I had met the one goal I had set for myself, the top tip I read in all the college mags: get to know your professors.  They all knew me by name, even the ones I had for packed seminar classes.  My Sociology professor would go so far as to wave to me on campus.  If that wasn’t an achievement, I don’t know what was.  Plus, he looked just like Maury Povich, which – bonus – I thought was so cool.

Anyway, one evening I find myself in the library being an A+ scholar…sort of.   Picture the scene:  I’ve got a textbook open, my Starbucks in front of me, and I’m just jamming out to my iTunes when The Most Beautiful Guy in The World stands up and leans over the little desk divider.  In an exact quote, he says, “I love that song.”  Expletives abound in my brain as I rip out my ear buds, wondering if these charming blue eyes are really masking his rage at my liberal use of the volume-up button.  In an ultimate loser move, I stare back in silence.  “The Postal Service, right?  Yeah, they’re really good,” he continues.  I’m still staring.  He’s drumming his fingers on my desk in rhythm with the music, which continues to play entirely too loud.  “I’m Will….you are?”  I finally blink, the first time since the start of this whole one-sided exchange, and mumble my name, choking halfway through the second syllable.  “Okay, well then, I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” he goes, and then winks (which, for the record, did not come off even mildly cheesy) before sitting down and going back to work.

Cue the sweaty palms and racing heart.  I cannot think about school at a time like this!  Are you insane!?  I shove everything into my bag, take one fleeting glance at the florescent lights glistening off Will’s gorgeously mussed hair, and then run the hell away.

In the sake of space, time, and short attention spans, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the weeks that followed.

The next day I ran into Major Hottie while getting a hot dog (seriously?) in the cafeteria.  This time, somewhat more prepared, I offered him ketchup for his chicken sandwich.  It may or may not have dropped on the floor as I went to slide it to his plate.  Once again, he was painfully calm and collected, asking if I wouldn’t mind sitting with him.  Mind?  Sir, I would sit with you naked in a blizzard (famous last words).   For the better part of two hours, he talked and I laughed louder than a normal person should.  We joked about hot dog eating etiquette and how he crashed his Beemer into the side of his house over the summer (wait, what?).  He told me about how he’s living in this fancy apartment off campus with two other guys who he insisted were a bigger mess than he was.  The whole time, I found it all very charming and agreed to go out with him that weekend.  A first date lead to a second date lead to a third and so on.  By fall break we were…close friends.

It was at that point that he propositioned me.  No, not like that, like this: “Hey, so I’ve been thinking.  Me and the guys were gonna head out for break a few days early.  You know, they don’t even go to class anyway.  Uh, I was wondering- maybe you wanna come?  I’m going to reserve my dad’s plane so you don’t need to worry about getting a ticket or anything.  And I’ve got skis, too.  You can borrow some.  Basically you just have to bring yourself, the rest I’ll take care of.”

His father’s plane?  Skis?  This was all news to me!  Not being the argumentative type, I violently shook my head up and down and promised to be with them when they left for the airport the following morning.

You know how people remember where they were and what they were doing the day Kennedy was shot?  Well, for some reason I remember how blue the sky was the morning I went to meet Will and his band of heathens.  Between struggling with an over-packed duffle bag and shoving through morning sidewalk traffic, somewhere along the way I must have glanced upward.  Because as I look back on this day, the biggest detail I remember was a cloudlessly blue sky.  Beyond that, I think I’ve blocked everything else out so as not to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.

Somehow they got me in the plane (I’m terrified of flying, a fact I forgot to mention to anyone) and before I knew it we were in the air.  Horror.  I was gripped with the chilling realization that a) I have no idea where this flying death trap is taking me, b) Aaliyah died on a small aircraft that was overloaded with baggage and I know I saw a lot of heavy winter paraphernalia go in the cargo area, c) no one knows of my whereabouts, and d) there is genuine wood paneling in this thing.

For the first time in my life, I drank dark liquor like the man I was not and blacked out until we landed.  Will had to help me down the dumb little plane stairs and into a yellow Hummer (truth) that was going to drive us to our wintery destination.  I think I slept on that ride, too.  It was at dinner that I fully snapped back into action.  They gave me vodka; something that was so familiar and comforting, it almost brought tears to my eyes.  While two of the three stooges flirted with a significantly older woman (whose name was Kitty or Candy or something equally as fitting), Will explained to me that we were at his family’s chalet (his word) and that if there was anything I needed, just “put it on the tab.”

Like any good girl in a bad situation, I finished my drink and just decided to go with things.  Little did I know, that night “things” included getting way drunker than I’ve ever been in my life, rolling in the street as Friend #1 peed next to me, watching Friend #2 smash a car window with a mailbox, helping Will steal a deer head off a hotel wall, and finally breaking into someone’s hot tub while (unbeknownst to us) they were in their living room watching the whole thing.  Snowflakes drifted down as we sat in the bubbly water like a happy, dysfunctional family passing a flask and singing ’80s hits.  I guess the homeowner didn’t want guests, however, because before we knew it red and blue lights came flashing and I began sobbing as a stranger urged me to put my clothes back on.

Sobriety hit me like a two hundred pound beam.  Ohmigod, someone’s putting me in cuffs!  I’m not like this; I’m a good kid!  Next to me Friend #2 resisted arrest and kicked around in the snow.  Will shouted something about wanting to see a man named Jack.  God help me, I just stood there trying not to pee my pants.

Reality sunk in as the booze fully left my blood stream.  They put me in the slammer.  Or shall I say, a posh resort town’s answer to the slammer.  There were tasteful wooden benches and a clock with no hands that had “Doin’ Time” written across the face.  On the bright side, my cuffs were off and I wasn’t behind bars, so I had that going for me.  Plus, there were three adorably rumpled guys sitting to my right with their heads in their hands.

Damnit girl, snap out of it!  How could I think about men at a time like this!?  I mentally slapped myself in the face and began plotting my escape.  Before I could say the word “shiv,” Jack strode in.  Please, if you will, picture an old timey, Western cowboy.  Now put said cowboy in a flannel shirt, really broken-in jeans, and age him twenty years.  This was Sheriff Jack and he was the about to be my best friend.

“Well Will, glad to see you back so soon,” he said through a thick accent I couldn’t place.  What? Was this some sick activity the resort plans for you?  Get drunk, get charged with breaking and entering, and go home with a blemish on your permanent record…thanks for visiting, come again!  Will looked up through bloodshot eyes and asked if Jack was going to make us spend the night like last time.  So…there was a “last time.”  I was getting a crash course in how to date Prince Harry, and if I’m being honest, I stopped liking it around our a capella rendition of “Betty Davis Eyes.”

Jack looked over his clipboard and saw us for the pathetic tourists we were.  “Yeah buddy, you’re here til 8am.  You know the drill.  I’m not gonna book you, but so help me if you move a muscle, I’ll call your father.”

He was right; we were there until I looked out the window in front of me and saw the sun coming up over the mountains.  By that point my hangover had more than set in and I was craving some greasy food and two Advil like whoa.  Jack did me one better by saying we could leave.  Just like that.  Free at last, free at last!  Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!

As long as I live, nothing will compare to the feeling of walking from that little log cabin of a building out into the freezing morning air.  Snow was falling again as I looked Will straight in the eye and said, plainly and directly, “I want to go home.  Now.”