Arricka’s Birthday

Basileia is InterVarsity’s year-end training retreat for all of NY and NJ. This is the second year I’ve gone. Matt, outgoing IV president, collected ride information from everyone and arranged ahead of time who would ride with whom on the 5-hour journey to the Adirondacks. I was initially placed with Jeff, who was coming from Ohio, but that didn’t work out, so I was moved to Allison’s car with Sara and Belinda. Arricka, the incoming president, was going to ride with Slippey and company, but she and Allison, the VP, wanted to ride together in order to plan things. So, I was swapped with Arricka, and instead rode with Slippey, Sarah, and Kirsten.

I wouldn’t have bothered with the preceding paragraph if it weren’t for the fact that it has a bearing on the following events. Slippey’s car was one of the first to leave RIT, since we were all assembled and ready. For as-of-yet unclear reasons, we stopped at Wal-Mart to get some water guns and water balloons. Once we got on our way and were cruising down the highway, Slippey explained the plan. It turned out that Arricka’s birthday was that day, so they wanted to celebrate it in some way. In particular, it seems Arricka is a prankster. I haven’t seen any of her exploits firsthand, but I’ve heard tell of saran-wrapped doors and apartments full of traffic cones and caution tape.

In retribution for all this, the plan was to ambush her by the side of a road with water guns and water balloons. Slippey and Matt were the ringleaders, and they had chosen a spot on Google Maps that was identifiable by the road names. We take route 3 through the Adirondack State Park from Watertown to the Saranac Village camp, near Tupper Lake. At some point route 56 goes north from 3, and there’s a short road called Sevey that makes a little triangle in the corner of those roads. All the cars that were in on the game were to meet up at Sevey, out of sight of the main road, and prepare to ambush Arricka.

Arricka was initially placed in Slippey’s car because he was involved in planning the shenanigans. When she changed cars, Allison had to be inducted into the plot. The idea was that Allison would stage a breakdown at the ambush site, through running out of gas or something of that sort. They would all get out of the car, and then the rest of us would attack. It fell to us to acquire the armaments, so that we did at the start of the trip. We stopped at a campsite near Cranberry Lake to look for a spigot to fill the balloons. When the park ranger at the entrance asked what we wanted, Slippey paused a moment, trying to find a plausible explanation, but then just told him the truth, that we were trying to ambush some friends. He simply pointed at the appropriate water source, and we started filling. We made about 50 balloons before deciding we’d had enough frozen fingers for the day.

We had to carry the bags of balloons on our laps the rest of the way. We reached the ambush site and parked on the side road, and three other cars pulled up soon after, making a total of something like 12 people. We inspected the site, and decided that the best way to do it was to have Dave’s car parked by the side of the road, flashers on, as if he had broken down. There was brush on each side of the road to hide behind, so Allison would stop the car, everyone would get out to look at the car, and all the water balloons would break loose.

We arrived around 6, but given Allison’s late start we weren’t expecting them until around 7. In the meantime, we explored an old excavator that was just down the road. It hadn’t been used in a while, and dated from the 70’s. (Some of the others insisted on calling it a crane, much to my chagrin.) We climbed all over it and opened the hatches and took pictures. Around 7 we headed back to set up.

I like keeping records, so I decided I was going to try recording video of the whole thing. Conveniently, there was a board nailed between two trees on the opposite side of the road from Dave’s car, so I was able to perch the camera right there and see the whole thing. Matt, Slippey, and I manned that side of the road, while the rest hid on the other side. We waited almost half an hour for our quarry to arrive. Dave stood in front of his car, ready to open his hood when he saw Allison’s car on the approach. Several people tried to stop and help, so he had to wave them off. Dave randomly started dancing around in front of the car, and decided that people wouldn’t bother stopping for a dancing person, since everything must be all right. That became our signal. We couldn’t see down the road, but we could see Dave, so whenever he thought an approaching car might be Allison, he reached for the hood, and we all took cover. Whenever he started dancing, we knew it was safe to stand up.

Matt had texted Allison with the revised plan: Look for Dave’s car broken down after 56. (He had to hold the phone above his head to send it, since this area had little cell coverage.) Unfortunately, before that she thought it was 58, not 56, and drove up and down that area a few times, on the pretense of looking for cheap gas. When they eventually arrived, they ended up driving right past us. “I think that was them,” Dave cried out. “Did they just drive by?!” Troy was standing up at the time, and he was sure Sara had looked right at him, possibly spoiling the plan if it weren’t that she already knew. But they did recognize Dave, and turned around.

I was recording video continuously, but deleting it every few minutes when they hadn’t shown up. This is where my video picks up. (Watch it on Facebook, or download it.) Allison and company came back the other way, and parked in the side road. Dave yelled to them as they ran over, and opened his hood. “I can’t believe you just drove by!” “You girls are engineers, you should be able to figure out what’s wrong.” Arricka went up to Dave, asking what happened, while Allison hung back and carefully ushered the other two girls to the other side of the car for safety. Then Dave made his move. “By the way, Arricka,” he said, pulling out his water gun. “Happy birthday!” He squirted her in the face, and dozens of water balloons came flying from both sides, splattering all around. She was momentarily blinded by Dave’s water gun, so she didn’t even see them coming.

The balloons kept flying for another minute, and then everyone gathered around the car. Arricka loved it. The exchanging of stories was punctuated every so often by the puncturing of the remaining water balloons, some of them on Matt. Some older people in a nice car stopped and asked if we needed any help. Slippey later took the common-sense angle on why they needn’t have bothered stopping: There were 16 of us all gathered around one car — there’s no way we all came from in there!

Everyone stood around talking for five minutes, and then the decision was made to head out and get dinner in Tupper Lake. We looked for a diner, but ended up at McDonalds and a sub place, where we all ate our food and a cake Arricka brought. We finally arrived at Basileia around 8, a bit wetter and later than normal, but for a good reason.