Memories of my Sweet Sixteen

So, I was looking for a picture from the party where the three birthday girls are smiling over our cakes, and I was about to call my mom so that she could get it for me, and then I remembered that all her photos are in Ohio, and she's still here in Chicago for another two weeks.

So, you're going to have to imagine me at 16 with my two best friends from High School, TM (now TB) and LS (now LF).

Ok, just to give you some background, TB, LF and I all have birthdays within a month of each other so a joint sweet 16 seemed like an absolute no brainer. LF's dad was or is the Harbor Master for the City of Chicago and although I'm not completely sure what he does/did, but it was powerful and it was awesome.

So he knew a guy who knew a guy who got us this really great deal on a charter boat, you know, the kind that you see all the tourists ride? Generally they're filled with cheap plastic lawn chairs and a questionable looking "bar", but they actually provide a lot of space when you get rid of all of that.

Collectively, we invited about 200 of our closest friends and we met at LF's house, loaded into what seemed like a million cars and we headed off to Navy Pier, where we were going to pick up the boat.

We get to Navy Pier and the DJ has already arrived and set up on the upper deck. There was food and cake on the lower deck and we were ready to party. We board the boat and head out to Lake Michigan. We were planning on being out till about 10:30 or 11:00 (i think, LF and TB - correct me if I'm wrong on any of this) and so we motored out to the light house and up and down the shore a few times, blasting "high school" music and generally having a good time.

After pizza and cake and all the obligatory birthday stuff, we went back to the upper deck to dance during our last pass of the light house before heading back to the pier.

At this point, my parents are looking off the side of the boat and they notice this odd shape in the water. They think to themselves, "What could be floating this far out from the shore?" My dad then says, "It's a body!!!" He runs up to the captain and tells him we have a man overboard.

They circle around and pull out their spotlight. All 3 sets of parents start rounding up the kids and turning off the music (totally lame) and make us go down to the lower deck for a head count. They're convinced someone took a nosedive off the end of the boat.

They realize that all the kids are here and being that we aren't that incredibly unaware, we start trying to figure out why they were being such downers and why we had a search light scanning the water. Eventually some chaperons lets it slip and then, like a tidal wave, the news spreads to everyone at the party.

Pandemonium ensues.

We have people hogging the bathrooms, throwing up and crying hysterically because they'd never seen a dead body (btw, it was 200 ft. away - you couldn't really see it), then there were the kids who didn't know what to do who just sort of sat around and made small talk. My brother was with most of the guys and a few boyfriends making dead body jokes, (i.e. "wow, this is a killer party!", "I bet his name is BOB"), there was also a group of super religious evangelists that were praying over his soul. I somehow managed to get stuck in their prayer circle. It was somewhat uncomfortable and seemed horrendously insincere.

They finally locate the body with the spotlight and call the harbor police. We're about 20 minutes from the harbor so we can see them coming for a REALLY long time. Eventually, the parents decide to let us turn the music back on and we go upstairs to dance. It's a bit awkward, but, being that we are mostly resilient high schoolers, we make it work.

The next day, we all go to school and the news of this crazy party is all over the school. My Choir teacher mentioned it in class and asked if anyone had heard about it. (LF and I were in the same choir and we're like, "uh...yeah, we heard about it".)

The funny thing is, there was a band concert the night of the party and according to the band director, to miss a concert should have been punishable by expulsion and the complete loss of a high school diploma. So all our friends that were conveniently "sick" from the band concert that night couldn't admit to being at the "killer party"...