Okay so over winter break I know I'm going to be visiting my parents for about three weeks while my job here in Wisconsin is shut down (I work for UW so we're not open when school's out).

For the week that the public schools are on break, my parents are going on some cruise in the Caribbean with my 12 year-old sister, one of her friends, I think that friend's younger brother and the parents of that friend.

My 17 year-old brother isn't going on the cruise because he doesn't want to hang out with my family and instead wants to have some time to hang out with his boys. My parents refuse to let him stay alone in the house since they know he'll cause all kinds of mischief. BUT if I don't go on the cruise then he can stay at the house with me--which in his mind means he'll be able to do whatever the fuck he wants.

So my choices are:

Go on a free cruise with some old people and young-ish kids with no accquantances of my own and hopefully hang out with some random other vacationers of a similar age to myself, while my brother gets stuck at a friend's house for his one week of freedom from school.

Skip the free cruise but enable my brother to have a good break while possibly putting myself in trouble with the law because if anything alcohol-related goes down with him I'm fucked since I'm 21.

Hmm.