peer/pier pressure

Tomorrow my friends and I leave for Hilton Head Island, SC.  Our group vacation there is becoming an annual thing.  (Writing that phrase, I can’t help but think of the way Lloyd pronounces “host an annual” in Dumb & Dumber.)

I’m afraid, though.  I’m afraid of this vacation.  Here’s why:

1. Everybody’s talking about rip tides/rip currents.  People seem to be drowning everywhere because of these currents that suck you out into the ocean.  I don’t want to drown.
2. We’re driving through the night tomorrow.  What if people fall asleep at the wheel?  I would like to institute a rule: Whoever’s sitting in the passenger seat must stay awake to ensure the driver is staying awake.  When I’m driving, I plan to have someone read Gone with the Wind to me.
3. Last year at Hilton Head, I got stung by a jellyfish.  Right on my bum.  It swelled up and itched for weeks.  It also hurt.
4. I don’t want to get eaten by a shark.
5. My friends have a ritual of swimming after dark.  It’s exciting and forbidden, much like eating off of someone’s plate while they’re in the bathroom.  But you know, according to msnbc.com, rip tides are most powerful between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.  (At least at that location they are.)  We could get sucked out to sea and no one would know!  And it would be all our fault because we broke the rules!
6. What if there’s no lifeguard on duty even during the daytime?

I’m worried that I’ll get heckled by my friends if I don’t swim with them at night.  They’ll tell me this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that I’ll be making memories I’ll never forget, that I’m leaving for two years and I’ll never see them again, that I should throw caution to the wind and truly live.  But I don’t want to truly die.

this was a sunset we saw last year at Hilton Head

…red at night, sailors’ delight