Stacy walks into the large dorm room that is occupied by her boyfriend, Alan and his two roommates Dale and Mitch and catches the three of them in the living room. She sees that they are busily packing clothing and other material into some carry-on bags and backpacks.
"Hi Stacy." Alan says to her as he turns away from his carry-on bag and gets up to greet her.
"Hi yourself, Tonto." She playfully teases him back.
They embrace one another and kiss each other firmly and passionately on the lips. Dale and Mitch stop what they are doing to watch them. Dale teasingly holds his wristwatch up in front of him to time how long Alan and Stacy are going to stay together locking lips. But Mitch playfully swats his hand away from his watch.
"Dale, do you mind not doing that while they are enjoying each other’s company?" Mitch whispers to him as they watch the two lovebirds in action.
"I am sorry, Mitch, I wasn’t trying to make fun of them. I am just..." Dale whispers back.
"I know, I know, you’re just feeling a bit jealous because Alan has a girlfriend here on campus whereas ours are still back home attending High School." Mitch reassures his friend.
Alan and Stacy then gently push themselves apart from one another.
"Hello guys."
"Hi Stacy."
Stacy smiles and chuckles at her friends for greeting her practically in unison. Dale and Mitch turn toward each other with a slightly embarrassed smile and shrug.
"Looks like you guys are getting to leave for Spring Break. Care to tell me what your plans are? She inquires as she looks from Alan to Dale to Mitch and then back again. "Home or someplace else?"
"We’re going off together to do some male-bonding away from campus and home" Dale tells her with a smile.
"Male-bonding?"
"Yeah Male-bonding. What’s wrong with that, Stacy?" Dale quizzes her back.
"Oh I don’t know, Dale. Word is about campus that you three have so much in common together that you guys are more like fraternal triplets bonded at the hip than three guys from different parts of the country. So how much more can you three bond together anyway?" She teases him.
Dale’s face flushes red from embarrassment from her teasing before he can collect himself to answer her question. He smiles and then answers.
"Okay point taken, Stacy. But our trip together is an exercise in male-bonding and friendship and nothing more. Okay? Besides I find that going on Spring Break with Alan and Mitch here to be a whole better than going home and staying with my parents and my sister. She just came home with another nephew and I don’t think I would have an enjoyable time at home listening to him 24-7." Dale tells her and then smiles again.
"Unlike Dale here, I am just looking forward to spending time with these guys off campus. Not much happening back at home for me to go there." Mitch tells her.
But as he tells her this, Stacy can see that her friend, Mitch, is uncertain and troubled about something. Before she can kindly ask him what’s wrong, her boyfriend interrupts her.
"As for me, I am like Dale here. I want to go somewhere where I can get the chance to sleep in and have some fun for a change. I doubt that I’ll get that if I go home and have to listen to my parents being up and about in the morning."
"What’s wrong with them being up when you are not?" She asks her boyfriend before reaching out to hold his hand briefly.
"Nothing except that they like watching TV or listening to the radio with the volume cranked up all the way. A guy can’t sleep with all of that noise pounding its’ way into his bedroom." Alan explains to her. He clasps her hand affectionately and looks into her eyes.
They spend a minute holding hands and looking at each other in the eye. Unspoken words float in the air between the two lovers. Dale and Mitch look at each other and smile and shake their heads from side to side in mirth. Alan and Stacy part again.
"So if you guys are planning to go somewhere together this Spring Break, can you tell me on where you three going?"
Alan, Dale and Mitch look at each other and then at her.
"Don’t tell me that you guys haven’t come up with a plan on how to spend your Spring Break together?!?" She asks them incredulously as she looks at each of them in turn.
Each of her friends looks back at her before reluctantly tearing their gaze away from her and looking at each other. Stacy’s surprise goes up a notch.
"Oh my god, you guys didn’t make any plans at all."
"I know what you are thinking, Stacy. We haven’t made any plans together for Spring Break. And the reason why we haven’t is because we haven’t been able to entirely agree on where we want to go." Dale tries to explain to her. "Each of us has an idea on where we should go for Spring Break but we haven’t been able to sway each other to go for one of those ideas. " He says that as he looks back at Alan.
"So we do each of you want to go on your Spring Break together, if you don’t mind me asking?" She asks the trio out off curiosity.
"Pleasure Island"
"Pleasure Island, that hedonistic retreat?" She asks her boyfriend incredulously. "Why do you want to go there on your Spring Break?"
Alan backs away from his girlfriend and looks a bit helpless for making her jealous about wanting to see that place. He looks to his friends for help but when he doesn’t see anything coming from them, he turns back to Stacy and gets ready to explain.
"Alan wants us to go to Pleasure Island ever since he had heard about it and learned that it overtook Cancun as the premier place to go and party round the clock." Dale tells her before Alan could explain to her about the place. "And believe me, Stacy, I am just as incredulous as you are about going there."
"Well at least it sounds like a better place to go than kiddie amusement park that you want us to go to." Alan coldly tells him.
"Circe’s Funhouse is not a kiddie amusement park. It just happens to be one of the best amusement parks around these parts and one of the top three in the country next to Cedar Point and Six Flags. Circe’s Funhouse has rides, attractions and quite an interesting number of pavilions that cater to people of all interests. It is a whole lot better than someplace where that revolves around sex, booze and drugs 24-7."
"Excuse me Stacy, Dale and me are going to have a little private conversation about we want to go together over Spring Break."
He prepares to take Dale over to a corner of the room when Stacy notices that Mitch appears to be hanging back a bit from his two roommates. She sees that he looks a bit lost and unsure on how to get his friends to stop arguing and debating over the Spring Break issue.
"Hey, Mitch, care to tell a friend on where you want to go with your friends over Spring Break? You look like you are unsure about giving your opinion here." She asks him softly and with care.
Mitch smiles nervously at what she wants to hear from him. He nervously looks over to his roommates and notices that he has their attention as well. He smiles again and then collects himself.
"I am not really fond of going places by myself or with others." He calmly tells her.
"How come?"
"I can’t say why. I just don’t feel like making my own decisions about going to places. I am more content on letting my friends take me where they want to go."
"Even if it is to a place that you might not like or makes you feel uncomfortable?" She asks him quietly.
"Even if it is to a place full for crowds and noise that makes me feel uncomfortable." He tells her matter-of-factly.
"Why?"
"Because they are my friends and because I want to make them happy. I like it when I make them happy about something that I said or did for them. I don’t want to see them unhappy on anything." He tells her with a trace of nervousness to his face.
"That’s very sweet of you, Mitch. But don’t you think that your friends ought to know where you want to go on Spring Break? They might actually like what you have to offer them in places to go and people to see." She asks him kindly.
"Really?"
"Really." She tells him with a smile.
He smiles back and then lets out a happy sigh.
"Well there is a Furry convention happening down in Houston, Texas during Spring Break that I want to go to. I’ve heard that this convention is a special one."
"How so?"
"Well the place reportedly offers its’ guests free animal costumes to wear during their stay there."
"Free animal costumes to wear?" She asks him with a friendly smirk. "I don’t know about you two guys, but I think that Mitch’s idea for Spring Break sounds a whole lot better than a hedonistic retreat or an amusement park." She says to all three of them.
Mitch smiles and blushes and finds himself feeling more confidant and alive than he was from a few moments ago.
"Thank you Stacy for getting me to open up on the Spring Break issue."
"No need to thank me, Mitch, I am just being a friend in need here." She tells him. "So what’s the name of this Furry convention?"
"Xenocon."
"Xenocon?"
Stacy smiles and then looks at her friends to see if Mitch’s idea has had any effect on helping them decide on where to go. But she sees that Alan and Dale still look like they are both stubborn on the issue. And she also sees that despite her attempt to cheer him up that Mitch is not entirely willing to put his idea over the ideas of his friends. She frowns and looks around their room for something that could resolve the issue that they are on. She quickly spies a pair of paper bags lying near their food cubicle. She walks over to them and picks them up while pulling a pen out of her front pocket.
"What are you doing, Stacy?" Alan asks her.
"Well since you three are playing stubborn about where you three should go for your Spring Break, I think that what’s needed to resolve it is a blind-toss up. I want you three to write down the place that you want to go to on your Break three times on a piece of paper. And then I want you guys to put those strips of paper into this bag I am holding. Can you guys do that for me?" She tells them with a stern look to her eyes and a smile to her lips.
Without a word they take the second paper bag and her pen from her. Dale cuts the bag up into paper strips while Alan and Mitch use her pen to write down their Spring Break ideas. A minute later, Dale finishes writing down his idea and then picks up the pile of paper strips. Stacy holds out the paper bag that she has and allows him to put in the strips of paper. She then takes the bag away from him and shakes it up. At the same time she shakes the paper bag, she incants something under her breath and waves her left hand over the bag.
"Why are you casting a spell on the bag for Stacy?" Dale asks her.
"I am merely put a spell of friendship on the bag to ensure that whatever place you guys pick in a majority vote will be the one you will all agree upon." She answers him.
"That’s good." Mitch tells her. "Maybe this blind-toss up and your spell will put an end to this last minute debating about where to go and my indecisiveness."
"You’re not being indecisive, Mitch, you are just being a concerned friend who likes putting others before himself. If there were more of you around, the world would be a better place in my opinion." She smiles at him again and watches as her words reassure him. She finishes shaking the bag and then she holds it out to the three of them.
"Now each of you reach in, take out a single strip of paper and tell me what you got."
One by one her friends reach into the bag that she is holding in front of them. They reach in and after a few seconds of rustling up its’ contents with their hands, they pull out a single strip of paper. Stacy looks at them and continues to smile. After Mitch pulls out his single strip of paper, she looks up at them and notes their facial expressions as they see for themselves on what they picked. But before they can react to what they see on their strips of paper, she speaks up.
"Okay guys, let’s here about where you guys are going to go on your Spring Break now."
The trio looks at her and then they give her their results on the blind-toss up.