New Year's Eve - Bring a Clock!

In 1998, my boyfriend at the time and I went to Las Vegas for New Year's. The week went well, and we were psyched to party in Vegas on New Year's Eve. We went to dinner and thronged to the Strip like hundreds of thousands of other people. We planted ourselves outside Caesar's Palace and things started to get crazy. People climbed onto the roof of Caesar's and were dancing on the chariots. People were dancing in the street and it was like Mardi Gras. A car got turned over like a riot was occurring. The excitement was palpable and a wee back scary!

As it got closer to midnight, there was a problem. There was no clock or no count down screen anyplace. WTF? Are they amateurs? How can you count down to midnight when no one knows when to start the count down? Time Square this set up was not. As I started to panic (there is only 1 chance for a NYE kiss) we checked our watches. Of course, we had different times. We asked people passing us and the times varied widely. What to do? I fought through the crowd, like a salmon swimming upstream, and reached a phone booth. I called the operator and asked for the time. It was after 12! We had missed midnight, ugh! No more Vegas for me on NYE, I am boycotting!

This past weekend, 18 of us went to Put in Bay, an island off of Ohio. On Saturday night, there was a street party called "New Year's Eve" oddly reminiscent of the Vegas experience of 11 years ago. Drunk people in the street, moving in mobs, in and out of bars. As midnight approached, we made our way to the Gazebo for some electric Lemonade. Again no clock, no countdown screen. Are these people this unorganized? Really? This is actually happening to me again. This time I was armed with my cell phone so I watched it and announced to our group when midnight struck so we could all toast. Feeling content that we made the best of the unimpressive situation, we continued our partying.

At 12:04, the DJ says "It's almost midnight - it's time to start the countdown." Was he sleeping? How do you miss it by 4 minutes? Why even bother to announce midnight that after the fact? So we counted down again, made another toast and laughed hysterically at the stupidity of the situation!

So please, if you are going to host a NYE event, please, please get a clock or a count down board or at least watch your watch. It's only midnight on NYE once a year, don't mess it up!