When I asked if this price would stay the same for the millennium, the man on the phone laughed. Staffing millennium parties is so expensive, he explained, that most clubs and bars in London would simply be closing their doors for the night. I'd be lucky to find anything, he warned, and then said it didn't matter for him because he was going to Sydney. Then he hung up. Going abroad isn't an option either.
Millennial airfare is predictably expensive.
But the financial demands of a trip pale in comparison to the Herculean effort that would be involved in organizing my disorganized friends to make it the kind of event that will leave me savoring the transcendent warmth of human friendship as the new millennium's first dawn lights its virgin skies. Instead, I'll probably pluck some well worded last-chance offer and find myself on a beach in Tunisia, seated next to an athletic couple from Utah who steer the conversation toward God and then tell the waiter not to bring any more wine. It's a race in which those near the pole position are most likely to win. Others, like me, who haven't qualified might as well pack a lunch, get a good seat and think about the millennium that might have been, the bragging that might have been done. I dream of the bubbles, the dancing, the kissing of beautiful strangers.