Disco 69

This post isn't remotely racy, despite the title.

Several friends have gone to Greece on their respective honeymoons recently, and so of course I had to ask if they went to Ios. I didn't say, "Ios, home of Disco 69" when I asked. But I would've mentioned the place if anyone had gone there. Alas, they had not.

The summer after my junior year of high school, we went to Greece for two weeks. My family rented a tiny sailboat, and hired the boat's captain, and sailed around some Greek islands. I got to bring a friend. There was just precisely enough room on this boat for the six of us.

And for some reason, on this particular vacation, my dad lifted his really strict social life restrictions. "Go out! Have fun!" We had no curfew.

And so at some point on our Greek island tour, we wound up on Ios, which has wild bars. And here we were, two 16-year old girls, who looked 14, out at the bars. Drinking, dancing, having a great time.

Because we were used to going to the fancy hotel bars and discos in Delhi, this wasn't weird to us. We didn't drink till we passed out. We weren't all intimidated by all the grown-ups. We were used to having adult men in bars buy us drinks. That was just the way our world worked.

What was not part of our world, however, was sex.

And so, when we got to Disco 69, we thought nothing of the name of the bar. You'd think that normal people would've looked at the logo - a silhouette of a man and a woman, you know, together - and gotten it. Yeah. Not us.

And so, late in the evening, when Carolyn said, "Let's buy T-shirts!" I thought it was a great idea! Whee! We're having so much fun! Let's get a memento!

So we traipsed back to the boat at 4 am, Disco 69 T-shirts in hand. And, since the boat was small, we woke everyone up as we toddled onto it.

They weren't upset about the late hour, or our condition, until one of us, and I don't remember which, said, "Look what we got!"

And we held up the shirts. With Disco 69. And the people.

Carolyn said, "We're going to wear them on the airplane!"

We were in sooo much trouble.

I refused, on principle, to relinquish the T-shirt, although I never, ever wore it out in public. I slept in it, just to be belligerent. It's mine, and you can't stop me from wearing it, was my take on it.

And so it stayed in my possession until somehow, some years later, getting lost in a mysterious flood in the laundry room.

I am embarrassed to say that t took me years, I mean years to realize why my parents were so upset.