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FORT LAUDERDALE- This weekend I will be going deep, deep undercover in the sunshine state. I will be like Colin Farrell in Miami Vice – living on the dangerous side of the law, cohabitating with the enemy, and nursing an obvious hangover at all times. I am going on spring break 2007, or as it’s known on facebook walls everywhere, SBK07, Baby!!!! My mission is to disguise myself as an undergrad, integrate myself into the spring break community, and seek out signs of intelligent life.
It’s a very dangerous mission. I gave it to myself, and as Lauren and Heidi from The Hills would say, it’s a solo mish. I wrote the mish in pencil on a note card, and then I made myself eat the note card so it wouldn’t exist anymore. And that reminded me of when I was in a fraternity, and we used to eat random stuff, or chug bottles of butter-flavored PriceChopper pancake syrup to work our way up the social ranks. I need to get back in that mindset for my undercover weekend.
This isn’t fun though. Do you think I want to be editing this column from the Ocean Sky Resort while I drink a large iced coffee and a Natty Light? It’s a disgusting combination, but I have to do it, because if anyone walks in on me working on a laptop, I need to look hardcore, like I’m ready to party, like I’m watching porn instead of typing a Word document.
To prepare for my mission, I have been thinking, eating, and tanning like a real spring breaker. For the first time ever, I soaked in the artificial rays provided by Sunshine Tanning, the salon located directly under my South Boston apartment. If you, like me, are new to fake-baking, here’s what happens: first you take off all your clothes and stand in an upright cylinder with lots of vertical white neon light bulbs. Then the machine turns on, and a turbine starts spinning above your head and it feels like you’re trapped in a fluorescent jet engine. Kiss 108 is playing Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape” at a level barely audible over the whooshing, rattling engine noise, but there’s nobody to talk to about the irony of listening to a song called “Sweet Escape” in a tanning booth.
I have also been doing 7 Minute Abs. You can order free sessions through Comcast’s OnDemand service, and I lie in front of the television in spandex on our ersatz tiger carpet, and try to make my stomach look like rocks under a damp shammy cloth.
Here are the most important muscles to develop for spring break:
1. Mons pubis (also known as the “penis muscle” or “sex muscle”)
2. Abs
3. Traps
4. Neck
5. Biceps/Triceps
My 7 Minute Abs take care of numbers one and two. Shrugs are good for three and four. And I develop number five by plumbing at least twice a week. Plumbing is when you go to the gym and work exclusively on the pipes.
I have also researched spring break extensively. I watch The Hills to learn how to communicate like an innocent, sweet, dumb college student. The secret is to start all my sentences with, “It’s like,” and only make eye contact when I’m not text messaging someone else.
I have interviewed spring break veterans. One friend said he was in Ft. Lauderdale on the exact same week last year, and there were two things I needed to know.
Thing #1: This is an off-week for East Coast colleges, so all the kids are from the Midwest. I’m not supposed to tell the girls I went to school in New England because they won’t be impressed. They’re too stupid to know what New England is. So I should tell them I’m an actor.
Thing #2: After the bars let out, everyone goes over to the beach and gets it on like turtles in the sand. (I once saw a nature show about turtles crawling up beaches to lay eggs in the sand, but I can’t remember if they mate there, too. I’d much rather mate in the sand than give birth in the sand, so I think turtles might be idiots.)
I am ready to go undercover as a spring breaker, but what will I find? Supposedly more college students are going on volunteer-themed spring breaks, but probably not in Ft. Lauderdale. Will I encounter a herd of privileged, apathetic, brain-dead, alcoholic deviants? Or will they have actual, like, opinions on stuff? More importantly, will anyone compliment me on my traps?
I’m scared of what this trip could do to me. I could “flip” like a cop that goes undercover with a gang of drug dealers, decides he likes a life of crime and money better than the straight life, starts sampling the product, and sleeps with the drug lord’s stripper girlfriend. I could become a real spring breaker.
But maybe I’ve already flipped. Maybe this whole premise - “going undercover” and “researching young people” - is a pretty lame and flimsy excuse to go to Florida and drink my face off. Maybe I invented the phrase, “going plumbing,” six years ago. Maybe I just want to be a moronic, carefree college student again, and maybe I went to Sunshine Tanning because I wanted to – not because it was part of my gonzo journalist job description.
Maybe I should just join the dark side, see what happens, and analyze later. It’s like, this is SBK07, and I’m not going to worry about what it all means.
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adam@theadamwhite.com |
