Nothing Good Happens on the 4th of July

Ten girls. One pool. Hot dogs galore. And BORGs (Black Out Rage Gallons). That was the recipe for a 4th of July celebration and it did lead to disaster.

The day began as a select few of us arrived early to the pool to claim our spots. Equipped with croissants, a weed pen, a massive pile of towels and too many floaties for three girls to blow up, we secured a spot with ample seating, shade and sun. After a quick trip upstairs to gather the massive amounts of alcohol that was purchased for the day, we returned to our spot to three men who had replaced our towels with themselves. After a brief altercation, the spot was once again ours and all was well.

The other girls started to arrive and by 11 am, we decided it was time to fill our BORGs. We divvied out gallons of water to each girl and proceeded to empty half, then fill the rest with vodka. We each added a few splashes of Mio followed by naming each BORG with a sharpie. Voila, the Gen-Z version of jungle juice, born from a generation who went to college during a pandemic. Sans germs, more drunk.

Flash forward to a pile of empty BORGs and a group of girls who had been terrorizing the pool for hours. Some were in the midst of a massive volleyball game in the pool, where an onlooker was heard saying, “hot girls playing volleyball in the pool? Damn dude, it’s like it’s the 90s.” Others were in their competitive mode playing flip cup with a group of men. The girls were scattered across the pool area, simultaneously making friends, wrecking havoc and consuming more and more alcohol.

As expected, some details are fuzzy but the entire group had planned for this celebration to carry into the evening. Drunkenly returning to an apartment and all getting dressed led to three girls physically ripping off closet doors that were jammed. The result was multiple trips to Home Depot and a confession to maintenance in the months to follow, but that is a different story.

Somehow, the group ended up at the bar. We must have invited the entire pool and to no one’s surprise, they followed us there. At this point, most of the girls had identified their match for the evening and the men were truly along for the ride. The debrief amongst the girl group the following day was a treat, although it didn’t take place until about 4 pm because the hangovers were pretty much a worst case scenario.

One of the chosen men seemed to linger within our lives for a bit longer than expected. We gave him a nickname that cannot be said because at one point someone told him the nickname, but at the end of the day he was a barnacle boy: stuck to the side of the ship and though as much as we tried, no one could quite get rid of him.

A few weeks post-July 4th, he met us at the bar and invited us to come back to his friend’s apartment once the lights turned on at 2 am. Normally, a few of us will take the lights turning on as a sign to retire to our beds and cats for the evening, but this time we were all up for the invitation. We found ourselves in an apartment with an array of men, one sporting a literal silver platter with lines ready. Immediately, his nickname was born: coke boyfriend.

At some point, someone has to go to the bathroom and the entire girl group joins. Thinking she had to pee, one ended up pooping a little. Which would have been fine, although with several girls squeezed into the bathroom it wasn’t ideal, until realizing that the toilet wouldn’t flush. You would think that numerous heads are better than one, but the group decided the best option was to scoop the feces out of the toilet with the man’s towel and leave. it. in. his. closet. Same girl proceeded to puke everywhere after the poop was placed, so in hindsight, it would’ve been better to just leave it.

As coke boyfriend was taking a break from guarding his platter to online gamble, the girls cleaned the bathroom and reemerged with more energy than before. They stayed for ANOTHER HOUR and left the next day, with a debrief unlike any other.

Months later, one of the girls arrived home after dinner out with the group. She was about to move and her roommate had already moved out.

She entered her apartment to the noise of water running and the subtle sound of a man’s voice. Terrified, she left the apartment and called a friend who came promptly.

The two went into the apartment together and called out, “is anyone in here?” to hear a man yelling in her roommate’s empty room. They rushed to the lobby and called the police, who came immediately to enter the apartment and discover that the man was the maintenance man. The apartment had flooded and the building hadn’t notified her that maintenance was entering, or about the situation at all.

She packed a few things to stay at a different apartment for the evening and upon leaving, the same police were outside dealing with – guess who! – coke boyfriend.

Maybe it was the BORGS. Maybe it was the sun. To this day, we’re still trying to remember the fuzzy details. But one thing is for sure, nothing good happens on the 4th.