I promised a great story....

Okay, you should probably get a snack or something, because I'm about to tell you the story of the best party I've ever been to. This story is not to be confused with "The Drunkest I've Ever Been", or "The Best Night at the Bar Ever"....I'll tell those stories eventually. Like I said last night, this story tarnishes my reputation pretty badly, but wow, it was a great party. Anyway, if any of my little under-18 pals read this: do as I say, kids, not as I do. I've been thinking about how to do this story some justice, and I think a timeline formula is probably best. Without further ado:

The Best Party I've Ever Been To (a true story by Sarah Parsons).

A little background:
It's June 6th, 2003 in Victoria, BC. After an entire year of working on our portfolios, all 60 students of the Western Academy of Photography have been forced to hand in our final projects at 9AM. For 24 hours, 7 days a week, we have been living and breathing photography. The stress had been unreal. There were times that we had gone without sleep for days. There wasn't much time for fun, but we needed to get our portfolios in proper shape in order to graduate. We were not normal college kids, there was no time for fun pub-crawls or parties. My point is, we had no way of releasing stress for a year.

My good pal Craig'Er lived in an apartment, but his mom lived in a great little beach house. She kindly let Craig'Er use her house for a get-together for the students of WAP on the afternoon of June 6th, 2003.
This is where our tale begins:

2:30PM- Chris, my good friend and co-inventor of Secretcam Video (the world's greatest hour of shaky, unprofessional footage of our drunken friends hitting on one another), and Aleisha pick me up.
2:45 PM- We go to the liquor store. I make sure to buy enough gin to knock out an elephant.
3:00PM- We arrive at the party. There is a good fire going, and the drinks are already starting to get poured. Maybe only 10 people are there, besides Craig'Er, Chris, Aleisha, and I. There are a few key players in this part of the story (all are my classmates). They are:
*Erin, who was my youngest classmate, was roughly my size, and could drink anyone under the table.
*Steven, who was about 7 feet tall, and would decide he had a huge crush on me every time he got wasted.
*Shaun, a model-type, that Erin had been after (unsuccessfully) for quite some time.
4:00PM- I am already wasted. Not just a little wasted, but really, really wasted.
4:30PM- Erin challenges Steven to a race out to a buoy in the middle of the ocean. It is June, but the water temperature is just above freezing. Steven wins.
4:45PM- I laugh at Erin for being all wet.
4:46PM- Erin tries to drag me into the water. I resist with all my might, causing sand to fly everywhere. Shaun begins to laugh, and a bunch of people start arriving, which makes Erin try even harder to pull me in.
5:05PM- After wrestling on the beach for what seemed like an eternity, Erin finally drags me into the water.
5:06PM- Erin and I decide to take a quick swim with our clothes on. As we walk out of the water, the crowd applauds.
5:10PM- Erin and I are freezing. We jump in the shower. When we are finished, there is 3 inches of sand in the bottom of the tub. We put on some of Craig'Er's sister's old clothes, and put our normal clothes in the dryer. I am now wearing green sweatpants and an actual old-school hypercolor t-shirt (remember those?).
5:11PM- I realize that I have already lost my underpants.
6:00PM- Almost the whole school has arrived. I decide that I need to drunkenly barbecue some food.
6:05PM- I decide that I'm not a good cook when I'm trashed. We call for pizza.
7:00PM- My entire school is at the party. It's now dark outside, and people are all around the fire. Being a bunch of photo students, there are cameras everywhere.
8:00PM- All of the students with any form of musical talents have begun to form some sort of drunken band. I am dancing like a madwoman.
8:10PM- A bunch of our instructors arrive.
8:15PM- I run around telling each of the 60 students, individually, how much I love them (sometimes more than once, as I was so drunk that I kept forgetting things).
10:30PM- Erin and I decide that we need to streak through the party. We forget that 90% of the people have cameras.
10:32PM- We put our clothes back on. We look at photo after photo of us running naked on the beach. We don't realize that, although these people love us, we will be teased relentlessly afterward for our drunken exploits. Keep in mind that everyone else is quietly sitting around a fire, being responsible party-goers.
11:00PM- Craig'Er tells me that he has something to show me up near the road. Chris, the designated driver of the night, was 100% sober, but decided to follow along. We walk up the stairs to the highway, and Craig'Er screams out "We're going streaking!!!" Craig'Er and I were obsessed with "Old School", so it only seemed natural at the time. We take off all of our clothes, and jog along the highway for a bit.
11:05PM- We begin to put our clothes back on.
11:05 and 1/2 PM- The cops arrive. Craig'Er and I are just putting our clothes back on, and Chris is standing there watching everything. The cop smiles, shakes his head, and says "Just tell your friends to keep it down, okay?"
12AM- Erin and I decide to get a ride home in Steven's truck. However, there is not room in the cab of the truck, as he is also driving Shaun and Adrian home. We decide to lay in the back of the truck (keep in mind, it is probably about 2 degrees outside) and watch the stars. Erin spend the whole time screaming into the cab that she loves Shaun and she is going to marry Shaun.
12:15AM- Shaun gets dropped off. He gets out of the truck and says "Here Erin, we can't get married, but you can keep my sweater".
12:30AM- Erin and I make Steven take the long way to my place. We are starting to enjoy the ride.
12:45AM- Steven drops me off and says "Maybe you should drink some water before bed".

About a week later, we all graduated. I went up to each one of my instructors and apologized for forcing them to see me naked more than once in a night. Then, I had to explain to my family that during the end-of-the-year slideshow, they would probably see some photos of me in some, ummmm, compromising positions. Although they did show some photos of the night, and they were quite obviously photos of Erin and I naked, they were tastefully cropped for public viewing. We were also mentioned in the year-end poem that my good pal Jimmy wrote.
At the Western Academy of Photography, I will not be remembered for taking amazing photos. Oh no, I will forever be remembered as the student that let out a year's worth of pent-up stress in one night.