It seems as if my most viewed post is personal stories. The most recent one being a funny story about my (almost tragic) mistake when going to see Harry Styles live. Therefore, I feel as if I should share another story about the fantastic luck I have. Someone actually requested (or simply suggested) that I tell these stories... So, this post is focused on the iconic weekend that occurs every year with UGA: Georgia-Florida weekend.
Georgia-Florida weekend, and I do not get along. Georgia-Florida weekend is when a flock of UGA students travel to St. Simon's Georgia for the world's largest beach tailgate, the pre-football-game party that happens the weekend of the Georgia-Florida game (hence the name). It's infamous for being extremely fun. It occurs during fall break, which is Halloween weekend, so we have a long weekend. That Friday, a crowd of students come to the beach dressed up in their funniest, craziest costumes or outfits. Saturday, most of us load up on buses and travel to Jacksonville to cheer on our beloved football team with a large tailgate and then finally, the actual game. I've been at UGA for three years, and each year somehow is worse than the year before. Like each year, I have planned and tried my best to make it the best, but something always comes up.
Let's start with freshman year. Freshman year, a group of friends from Kappa Delta booked a hotel room in St. Simons. This also happened to be when the massive storm, also known as Irma Hurricane, ran through South Georgia and Florida. In particular, our hotel had significant damage causing the hotel to call us and cancel our reservation. So, freshman year, I wasn't even able to attend Georgia-Florida. Yes, tears were shed.
The next year, sophomore year, I actually did go to St. Simons. I stayed with my roommate, Emily, in her beach house, and there was no hurricane to ruin our plans. We did the whole shebang, meaning we dressed funny and headed to the beach. Of course, it was raining, which put a damper on the mood because the weather was not pretty at all. But, we still made the best of it. I found my best friend, Chloe, on the beach and stuck with her most of the time. St. Simons prepares for the weekend appropriately by lining up their primary public beach access with port-a-potties. I'm talking about at least 20 or 30 port-a-potties. Of course, the time came where Chloe and I had to use the bathroom. We went to the port-a-potties and waited for our turn. We both had to go so bad that as girls usually do, we went inside the port-a-potty together. Crammed into this small, nasty space, I tried to place my phone on a little corner shelf in the potty. Take a guess on what happened... Yes, correct, I dropped it. It fell straight into the port-a-potty. I didn't know what to do.
Now, you probably expect me to just leave it. But, no. Chloe started screaming at me to get it, and I was screaming back that I obviously couldn't just stick my hand into a pile of human waste. She had a plastic bag of pretzels in her fanny pack that she dumped out, and I put my hand in it. Using the plastic baggy over my hand, I bravely stuck my hand into the waste and searched for my phone. After I began to gag and almost throw up all over Chloe, I retracted my hand. I was at a lost for words, my phone was gone. It was just going to have to stay there and rot. Not to mention, I was still gagging because there was... I'm not going to say it, but a piece of something that should not be on my hand, was in fact, on my hand. Chloe, being extremely brave, put her bare hands down into the plastic toilet and immediately grabbed my phone and pulled it out. We screamed. I actually cried, I think. If that isn't God's work, then I am not sure what is. We poured an excessive amount of water and alcohol all over the phone to hopefully decontaminate it. Not sure how well that helped, but my phone lit up like a Christmas tree and was working just as usual. Anyways, being a sophomore, I didn't have tickets to the game, so I hung out with Chloe for the remainder of the weekend in St. Simons and went about my days there. But the trauma of the port-a-potty incident did not and will never fade from my memory.
Sophomore Year "Frat" beach:
Finally, this past fall, I went back to St. Simons to participate in Georgia-Florida weekend. Being a junior, I was able to be rewarded with an actual ticket to the game! I was so excited to experience the weekend to its fullest, finally, the beach, the tailgate, the game, all of it. I was staying with Emily in her house again, and we were leaving late Thursday morning. I woke up and packed my stuff together. As I added the last of my essentials, I started to look for my ticket to the game. I clearly remembered picking it up from the sports communications building, coming home, and putting it in my nightstand drawer. But of course, I could have very well dreamed that up. I usually stress about losing essential items such as this, especially after the Harry Styles ticket incident. I wanted to actually be responsible for once. Of course, I could not find it. I flipped my room, my house, my car, everything, upside down looking for that ticket. It came time to leave, and I was still searching. It was nowhere to be found. The weekend hadn't started yet, and there goes $80 and my chance to attend the game down the drain. I had to suck it up and tell myself I'd still be able to experience the beach day and the large tailgate I had already paid for. I hopped in the car with Emily and tried to have a good time anyways.
Once we arrive in St. Simons that Thursday night, we went out on the town and had a great time. We continued to laugh about my missing ticket, but I wasn't worried about it. I was just going to have to go to the tailgate in Jacksonville and find someone to hang out with there.
The next morning was the morning of the actual "frat beach." I woke up at 8am in so much pain. This may be too much information, but it goes to show how graceful my luck is. I felt terrible as if I had a fever. My friend dropped me off at the Urgent Care in St. Simons. After an hour's visit with the doctor turns out that I was indeed sick! I won't share what was wrong, but it wasn't contagious and could be cured easily with medicine. But I was so excited to go back to the beach house and share the news!! That was sarcasm. I was not happy at all. I felt awful; I had a fever and was exhausted.
So, I missed out on frat beach festivities. I stayed in the house and slept all day because I felt so sick. Luckily, we got sushi for dinner that night.
Hey, but I did use my skills to photoshop myself into the group picture:
The next morning was Saturday, which was game day. I felt better since the medicine kicked in. My friends and I almost missed the bus to Jacksonville, though, since we decided to make a Starbucks stop. At the tailgate, I was having a blast. I hung around with my friends, saw other people I hadn't seen in a while, walked around Jacksonville. However, time for the game came. I quickly realized absolutely no one I knew would be staying at the tailgate to watch the game. Literally, no one I knew. So, I started walking to the stadium with my group of friends and hoped I would find someone selling a ticket on the side of the road. Of course, I didn't have the money for it. So I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for it, but I was just praying to God something would happen.
I found a guy selling a ticket, and I ran to him. He sold me a ticket for $100, which apparently was a discount. I got a discount because we were both from Athens... not sure what the non-discounted price was. I Venmoed him, and it went through. Oh, by the way, my parents had no clue of any of this. They didn't know I had even lost my ticket, to begin with. Eventually, I told them after the weekend, but I had too much stress about the whole ordeal to stress them out also.
At the end of the day, I attended the game. It was great. I worked most home games, so I hadn't even been to a full UGA game that season. It was worth the $180 I lost. $80 being the missing ticket and $100 being the ticket bought off the street.
Here is some proof that I did indeed make it into the game:
The moral of the story is that I don't trust Georgia-Florida weekend. Something always goes south. It never fails for me to mess it up one way or another! Not to sound self-deprecating, it's just become a pattern at this point. And to top it off, corona may ruin my last year of being able to attend Georgia-Florida weekend as a UGA Student! Other than the series of unfortunate events I have encountered on these weekends, I do end up having a great time and making the best out of it with my friends. But, I've concluded that this is God's favorite weekend to test me.. or my luck is just awful. Finally, let me just say, go dawgs!
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