Brannigan's Law

Welcome back to Brannigans Law! So, here we are again today, and can you believe that the week has gone by so fast!? It’s been great. You wanna’ know something else that’s great?

Peeing off of classic steam liners. That’s what’s great. There is a story involved here.

I went to school in New York once, and there was an 11:00pm curfew. One week our R.A. was off on a tour with his drama group. He left Jared; one of the students in our sister dorm; in charge.

Skip ahead to Friday night where we find ourselves in the Glens Falls, New York. Jared (our temporary RA) checks his watch and says ‘oh shoot…it’s 11:00’. So we thought we all had to get back, but then he said ‘Oh well. Doesn’t matter.”

Our night of fun begins!

After driving on the highways in the middle of the night without headlights….

*Freeze Frame*

DO NOT EVER DO THIS! IT WAS TERRIFYING!

*Unfreeze*

…, driving off road through the Upstate New York woods, and other things I cannot remember, we ended up in Lake George New York where this beautiful steamship pictured on the right was at berth.

As we admired it’s beauty in the middle of the night, one of us suggested that we sneak on board. This required us jumping about 4 feet over the open water…

*Freeze Frame*

Make sure that you have good shoes for this one kids…you’ll find out later in the story…

*Unfreeze*

So there we are; safely aboard; enjoying the full moon and peaceful water as we lean on the railing on the ships bow. That is when we hear it…the trickle far down below, and then the others notice that someone is peeing off of the boat. Fun (as it only can be to college kids). Since it’s dark, and we’d drank a lot of sodas that night, we all join in. We all laugh at our brazen disrespect for the hallowed boat by peeing off of its side and it is right about then that the spotlight hits us. Maybe we were a little too loud, maybe the unnatural trickle in the water on a cloudless night caught someone’s attention….regardless of the reason, someone had a spotlight shining on us as we peed off of the ship.

*Freeze Frame*

Anyone knows that when you’re mid-stream, it is difficult to stop. Few have known what it is like to be mid-stream and panicked…stopping is not an option.

*Unfreeze*

As the boat in the water approaches us from quite a ways away, we realize that we have to move fast. It is hard to move fast while whizzing, among five other whizzing guys. So, we did our best, and then we ran, we ran, we ran…all the way to the railing.

*Freeze frame*

Remember, it is easy to jump on to a boat with a running start, but when the railing prevents a running start, it is difficult jumping off…

*Unfreeze*

Here, we had a little more difficulty. I remember Keith (a smaller fellow…not too strong) narrowly missing a midnight bath in Lake George. He had slippy shoes, and a short jump. I think Chad caught him before he went in…

As we scrambled to our car, we realized that we were probably safe, and we sped off laughing to ourselves…good times. Now this boat, this very boat…has a spot in my memory forever.