easyphloem
Branched out member
- Location
- Louisville, KY
In retrospect, it should have been easy to see how the authorities would interpret our acts as an open declaration of war on Christmas. We were just too juiced up with adolescent testosterone to see the clear implications of our so-called "prank".
With that introduction, let's plunge into this tale of sordid Christmas woe and teenage angst....
The year was 1994. The month was December. The location was a small private high school in St. Louis, MO.
The main culprits, 6 talented and entirely too privileged young men, sat huddled around the coffee table in one of the senior's dorm room. Plans were being hatched, evil, far-fletched plans. Some would later say ill-concieved plans were being hatched.
The object being planned against sat in silence in the school's main entrance hallway. Well, to say it sat in silence is selling the object short. Rather, it sat in majestic, stoic silence, towering some 30 feet and shimmering with various ornaments and candy canes. It had no clue what was about to unfold, as apparently, neither did the administration or the student body.
The planning took a solid week, and more than a few times, one of the group would question the logic of said plans, which would immediately be poo-pooed by the others. This lone dissenter was not just one of them, but each one of them, in turn, would question the goal of the "prank", and whether it might not be better to just go and sneak into the girl's dorm and take pictures of sleeping co-eds. It is a question historians would later pose as to whether or not it would have been possible for any of them to have a clear idea of the ramifications of what was about to unfold......
The night was bathed in moonlight, cold and crisp. The kind of night that made your teenage loins ache for a teenage girl to fondle and hold tight against the bitter cold.
None of the young men thought about their loins that night, though. They thought about the logistics of breaking into the main lobby, and dismantling the tree without being detected by campus security, and spiriting away the three separate pieces into the bright moonlight, each section destined for a predetermined location, each more sinister and devious than the last.
I can say with certainty that the breaking in part of the plan went according to plan. I can say with certainty that not one of us was prepared for the magnitude of the task involved in bringing down a 30 foot tall fake Christmas tree that was loaded with ornaments and garland without making a sound. We failed miserably in the execution of that part of the plan. Many, many ornaments were broken, along with the spirit of Christmas as the tree tipped over in the pale light that streamed through the tall windows of the lobby.
We rapidly broke the tree apart into three sections, and this went perfectly according to the plan. After the sections were taken apart, we broke up into two man teams, each team with a section of the tree and a destination for that section somewhere on the campus. We stole out into the night, and this is where our story will concentrate on the middle section. I was on the team that was responsible for taking the middle section from the academic building to the swimming pool facility (which consisted of breaking into that facility), and dropping the section into the pool. That was the plan.
The tree was remarkably heavy for just a ten foot section, but my cohort and I faithfully lugged it's bulk across the green and toward the back doors to the pool. After several minutes with a coat hanger, the door was swinging open, and the humid, chlorine filled air rushed out into the night. We wrestled the section through the double doors and quickly tossed the tree into the pool. I remember vividly watching the section slowly sink and distort as the dark blue water swallowed any redemption we could have salvaged from the night. It was done. We completed our part of the plan.
We ran back to our dorm and, according to plan, waited for the other teams to get back safely. The top section was to be placed atop the Library roof, for the inspection of the general public in the morning light. The bottom section was placed strategically in the woods under a small bridge that spanned a small creek.
Sometime around 3 am, all of the teams were back at the check point, and all teams reported that the mission had gone successfully.
We arose the next morning expecting to hear of the news that through a stroke of brilliance, someone or some group of people had outsmarted the campus safety and the whole of the adult world by stealing the one thing no one thought could (or should) be stolen.
The morning was clear and bright, and much to our shock, there was no news awaiting us at breakfast. Neither was there the top section of the tree on top of the Library. En mass, we all started to get a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomachs that this might not be retold as the greatest prank ever to be pulled.
We were right. From the outside, what it looked like was that a group of people who obviously hate Christmas tore down the giant beautiful Christmas tree, smashed the ornaments to bits in the lobby, and scattered it's shabby remains around the campus. On an aside note, not one of us had any idea that the chlorine in the pool would undo the glue holding the plastic needles on to the fake limbs, which would consequently float to the top of the pool and clog the pool's filtration system and cost thousands to clean up.
Within hours, the administration had one name out of the group, maybe it was a guess, maybe it wasn't. The fact was they wanted blood. Bad. They were threatening to expel our comrade if others didn't come forward. We met briefly, and it was decided that if one of us was going down, then all of us would go down.
The five of us went to the principal's office and confessed our transgressions against the symbol of holiday goodwill. Based on the stellar academic record of several of the crew, and the near blank slate of previous disciplinary that all of us held, we were not kicked out of school.
We were forced to pay about $250.00 apiece, and were suspended for two weeks before Christmas break, and were ordered to serve 25 hours of community service in our home communities.
And here I sit, 14 years later. I still can feel my heart beating with the rush of doing something that I knew I shouldn't be doing. I can still taste the chlorine in the air as I watched the middle section wobble to the bottom of the deep end. I can still hear myself trying to explain to my parents exactly what I though I might be accomplishing by stealing a Christmas tree.
Would I do it again?
HELL YEAH!!!!!!
SZ
With that introduction, let's plunge into this tale of sordid Christmas woe and teenage angst....
The year was 1994. The month was December. The location was a small private high school in St. Louis, MO.
The main culprits, 6 talented and entirely too privileged young men, sat huddled around the coffee table in one of the senior's dorm room. Plans were being hatched, evil, far-fletched plans. Some would later say ill-concieved plans were being hatched.
The object being planned against sat in silence in the school's main entrance hallway. Well, to say it sat in silence is selling the object short. Rather, it sat in majestic, stoic silence, towering some 30 feet and shimmering with various ornaments and candy canes. It had no clue what was about to unfold, as apparently, neither did the administration or the student body.
The planning took a solid week, and more than a few times, one of the group would question the logic of said plans, which would immediately be poo-pooed by the others. This lone dissenter was not just one of them, but each one of them, in turn, would question the goal of the "prank", and whether it might not be better to just go and sneak into the girl's dorm and take pictures of sleeping co-eds. It is a question historians would later pose as to whether or not it would have been possible for any of them to have a clear idea of the ramifications of what was about to unfold......
The night was bathed in moonlight, cold and crisp. The kind of night that made your teenage loins ache for a teenage girl to fondle and hold tight against the bitter cold.
None of the young men thought about their loins that night, though. They thought about the logistics of breaking into the main lobby, and dismantling the tree without being detected by campus security, and spiriting away the three separate pieces into the bright moonlight, each section destined for a predetermined location, each more sinister and devious than the last.
I can say with certainty that the breaking in part of the plan went according to plan. I can say with certainty that not one of us was prepared for the magnitude of the task involved in bringing down a 30 foot tall fake Christmas tree that was loaded with ornaments and garland without making a sound. We failed miserably in the execution of that part of the plan. Many, many ornaments were broken, along with the spirit of Christmas as the tree tipped over in the pale light that streamed through the tall windows of the lobby.
We rapidly broke the tree apart into three sections, and this went perfectly according to the plan. After the sections were taken apart, we broke up into two man teams, each team with a section of the tree and a destination for that section somewhere on the campus. We stole out into the night, and this is where our story will concentrate on the middle section. I was on the team that was responsible for taking the middle section from the academic building to the swimming pool facility (which consisted of breaking into that facility), and dropping the section into the pool. That was the plan.
The tree was remarkably heavy for just a ten foot section, but my cohort and I faithfully lugged it's bulk across the green and toward the back doors to the pool. After several minutes with a coat hanger, the door was swinging open, and the humid, chlorine filled air rushed out into the night. We wrestled the section through the double doors and quickly tossed the tree into the pool. I remember vividly watching the section slowly sink and distort as the dark blue water swallowed any redemption we could have salvaged from the night. It was done. We completed our part of the plan.
We ran back to our dorm and, according to plan, waited for the other teams to get back safely. The top section was to be placed atop the Library roof, for the inspection of the general public in the morning light. The bottom section was placed strategically in the woods under a small bridge that spanned a small creek.
Sometime around 3 am, all of the teams were back at the check point, and all teams reported that the mission had gone successfully.
We arose the next morning expecting to hear of the news that through a stroke of brilliance, someone or some group of people had outsmarted the campus safety and the whole of the adult world by stealing the one thing no one thought could (or should) be stolen.
The morning was clear and bright, and much to our shock, there was no news awaiting us at breakfast. Neither was there the top section of the tree on top of the Library. En mass, we all started to get a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomachs that this might not be retold as the greatest prank ever to be pulled.
We were right. From the outside, what it looked like was that a group of people who obviously hate Christmas tore down the giant beautiful Christmas tree, smashed the ornaments to bits in the lobby, and scattered it's shabby remains around the campus. On an aside note, not one of us had any idea that the chlorine in the pool would undo the glue holding the plastic needles on to the fake limbs, which would consequently float to the top of the pool and clog the pool's filtration system and cost thousands to clean up.
Within hours, the administration had one name out of the group, maybe it was a guess, maybe it wasn't. The fact was they wanted blood. Bad. They were threatening to expel our comrade if others didn't come forward. We met briefly, and it was decided that if one of us was going down, then all of us would go down.
The five of us went to the principal's office and confessed our transgressions against the symbol of holiday goodwill. Based on the stellar academic record of several of the crew, and the near blank slate of previous disciplinary that all of us held, we were not kicked out of school.
We were forced to pay about $250.00 apiece, and were suspended for two weeks before Christmas break, and were ordered to serve 25 hours of community service in our home communities.
And here I sit, 14 years later. I still can feel my heart beating with the rush of doing something that I knew I shouldn't be doing. I can still taste the chlorine in the air as I watched the middle section wobble to the bottom of the deep end. I can still hear myself trying to explain to my parents exactly what I though I might be accomplishing by stealing a Christmas tree.
Would I do it again?
HELL YEAH!!!!!!
SZ
