Under The Mistletoe

Christmas Eve Madness

As the holidays approach, the campus empties as students head home to their families to celebrate Christmas, but I'm not one of them. I completely hate where I grew up with controlling parents, so for the first time, I get to decide what I want and don't want. I call my parents to tell them that I can't make it home and lie that I still have a lot of school work to do. And as expected, it shuts them up since they want nothing but excellent grades from me.

My best friend, Lara also cannot stand where she grew up, so she decides to stay put, and for our first holiday alone, we plan to bar hop on Christmas Eve, then spend the next day recovering. Lara loves the idea but has concerns about getting caught and arrested for drinking illegally, that's if any bar agrees to sell us alcohol in the first place.

We spend the next couple of days planning a way around it. We get menial jobs for extra cash, then hire someone to make us fake IDs. When the D-Day comes, we're more than excited to go on our adventure. Lara wears a mini tube dress with a scarf around her shoulders, while I go for a pair of jeans and a crop top. We don't carry any bags or phones because we don't want to lose anything, so all we have in my pocket are my room key, our fake IDs, and all our cash.

On our list are ten bars. There are definitely more in the city, but we're not sure that we can take more than ten drinks each for first-time bar hoppers.

We have beers in the first bar, then take that off our list. At the second bar, we try cocktails, and at the third, we have white wine. We then have liquor in another and champagne after that. With everything going as planned, we go to the sixth bar and try an exotic mix of rum, lime juice, and sugarcane syrup. It tastes like heaven but feels like hell when I become nauseous.

I run off to the restroom and let it all out, then feel some sort of relief. When I go back to the main bar, I find our table empty. I believe that Lara is in the restroom, so I wait a few minutes for her until the wait gets too long. I go back to the restroom, worried that she might have passed out there, but there's no sign of her. I peep into the male's restroom and don't see her there either.

When I ask around, no one in the bar recalls seeing her, not even the waiter who served us and cleared our table. I want to call her but remember that our phones are back in my room. I go outside the bar to look for her, but it's no different. I gradually begin to enter panic mode.

Just then, a guy approaches me from the bar and says that he saw me peep inside the male's restroom. I'm embarrassed, then I apologise before telling him that I'm looking for my friend. I describe her and ask if he has seen her. He remembers seeing someone in that description in the bar, but nothing else.

I thank the heavens that someone has at least seen her. When I start asking further questions, he says he has to get to work. I bring out all the cash in my pocket and offer to pay him for his time. He hesitates, then takes it. He introduces himself as Tony, and after I give him my fake name, he asks me to follow him.

I'm sceptical when we get to his decrepit car, but as if he has read my mind, he tells me that I have nothing to worry about. I take the risk and hop in, then we drive around the city but don't see Lara anywhere. We visit all the bars around and don't find her. At this point, my head is spinning stars.

When we run out of options, Tony suggests that we go to the police. I vehemently refuse, and when he pushes for a reason, I tell him everything; the lie, the drinking plan, the fake IDs, and now the fear of getting caught and also losing my best friend. The thought makes me shudder.

Tony looks disappointed. He asks why I have to live a lie just for one day of fun, and I wonder if I've recruited a pastor. He tells me that the price of being an adult is being ready for the consequence of every decision I make and every action I take. He also tells me that the first rule of drinking is never to mix drinks. With that, I conclude that I indeed recruited a pastor, who actually knows a few things about being an adult. I accept and let him drive me to the police station.

I see Lara's scarf before I spot her, then run over and give her a big hug from the cell bars. I ask what happened to her and she explains that she had gone out for some air and walked down the street but couldn't remember what bar I was in. She became hysterical, going in and out of bars when someone alerted the police that she could possibly be in danger.

When asked for her ID, she didn't have it on her, but she provided the information on it, which belonged to a hooker and led to her immediate arrest. I'm sad but glad that she's okay. I thank Tony, and after he leaves, I do the right thing and report myself to the police. There's no way I'm leaving my best friend alone.

We spend Christmas day recovering all right, but not in our beds as imagined, but in a cell, where we laugh at our Christmas Eve madness and cheer to new adulthood.