Friday, September 2, 2011

Where'd it Go?

I'm not saying I lost my head...
But I am saying I lost my dignity.

Picture it, Thursday night, Dupont Circle on a cool crisp evening, at my Norm bar, Rumors.

After disappearing into the Texas wilderness for a week and a half and the most desperate road sprint of my life, I was meeting up for Happy Hour with my 2 of my oldest DC buddies, who happen to also be men, who happen to also be awesome, we'll call them B&B

When I got downtown at 6:30 they were already a few beers in over at another happy hour. So as I wait, I grab a drink from Tony, who is a new person to me so I don't really know him all that well, and I'm a little bored, so I check some twitter messages and before I know it B&B have hit the scene. Bartender Tony leaves, and Bartender J, whom I ADORE, steps into his place and somewhere between ordering my dinner for the night a big plate of nachos and sleeping on Bills couch later that night. I got how shall we say - inebriated. I'm not talking Sexyface drunk. But I was unnecessarily feeling it on a Thursday night.

Between all the drinks I begin to imbibe, and the limited caloric intake of things that were not liquid... I began to get friendly.

If you've seen me drunk. You've seen me friendly. Me friendly is like a hurricane hitting you in the dead of night. It's not a surprise, but it's not all together something that everyone enjoys or needs or wants or can really handle.

For example, I once introduced two guys to each other... at a fraternity mixer... their own fraternity mixer... where they were both brothers, but I felt that they needed to meet each other... did I mention they were in the same pledge class?

SO back to the story. Rumors is hoppin, and people are everywhere. I'm making eyes at the DJ, who BTW is making them back, I'm dancing with a tall gorgeous black woman, I'm throwing beer bottles into a trash-can egged on by J and the boys, and I'm kissing everyone, EVERYONE, on the cheek. Everyone is also being hugged. J is giving me Starbursts, I'm hiding the Starburst wrappers in matchbooks and putting them back in the matchbook-cup. I'm stock piling straws, and then it's time to go.

No Big Deal. Whatever, but here's where everyone now needs my phone number. Everyone. From J, to the two tall gorgeous black girls, to a chef, to the DJ... (we'll revisit DJ a few paragraphs down).

So we hopped bars. (This was just supposed to be happy hour).

Now at my Bartender's bar, I bebop inside to say "Hi" to him and the Head of Security, because I love him. He doesn't know it. And it's not going to happen, but I do. But here's why it's for sure not happening.

1. TIPS Training.
2. The following event
I rush inside of the bar in a fury, one of the B's on my tail. (B number 2 had departed due to a ridiculous need to be up at the crack of dawn). There is the head of security (from now on known as HOSS) standing at the end of the bar, next to Bartender. Classily, I saunter up, kiss Hoss on the cheek, several times, and introduce him to B. - Normal procedure. I tell Hoss several times that I am going to get water from Bartender. (might have been 12) He tells me "it's not going to happen" I walk over. Bartender kisses me and SURPRISE!!!!! I don't get water. I get two disgusting drinks that made vomit appealing, which I tell him. - Oops... I try desperately to get my flirt on with Hoss, but after just getting an epic kiss from the Bartender... eh, Hoss loses interest and leaves.

After getting my water and dancing and going to the bathroom and running into Hoss again, it's time to leave, but world. I am still in friendly mode. So I give Hoss a big fucking hug, profess my love and adoration, then walk over to Bartender, grab him by the vest. Pull him into me. And say, "When are we going to fucking have those children," before I kiss him with enough passion and desperation that I pop a button off his vest (LITERALLY it popped off and flew into some guy's drink), dishevel the poor man's hair, get the poor man into trouble, and then saunter off to text everyone in my contact list while avoiding B's useless attempts to grab my phone away from me.

Enter next morning.

I'm at B's apartment, sleeping on the couch, just starting to awake when B and his girlfriend come into the living room... and begin to hash out the things I don't remember.

First things first, why was our tab decently expensive... (I'm not talking 5 course dinner expensive, but we had been receiving the bartender special and it seemed a little high) Well here's why - B had partaken of a decent amount of alcohol... and then he reminded me of my intake - 3 Pineapples&Rum, 2 Rum&Cokes, a CherryCoke Shot, Sex with an Alligator, TWO count them TWO purple nerd drinks ALL on a Thursday night... Why two purple nerd drinks? Well let me tell you,

"J, can you make a drink taste like a purple nerd?"
He makes a pensive face and begins pouring. Liqueur is going everywhere, his hands play the bottles like a concert pianist plays the keys, and he brings me a glass full of a bizarre yellow/green liquid.
"J... this isn't purple."
"Taste it!" he says, "It fucking tastes like a purple nerd." To prove his point - he dips a straw into the glass, pulls it out and tastes. "OMFG that tastes like a fucking purple nerd. OMFG I am AMAZING. I am a GODDDDDDDDD!"
I taste and "OMFG that tastes like a fucking purple nerd!" We pass the drink around and indeed my group agrees purple nerd. But here's my problem. I go to Rumors more than I go to some of my best friend's houses. I have had this drink SEVERAL times. The GM Paul (also the best bartender in DC) has made me this drink several times. I love it. I would give up a toe for this drink. Not that anyone wants a toe. But J's drink... was yellow/green... where the GM's is usually purple. And Purple is the color of the drink. And to be fair, in my drunk head I had asked for a purple nerd drink and this one was NOT purple.
Drunk me is not upset, but saddened and confused by this non purple concoction in front of me.

So, I grab my drink saunter to the downstairs bar and say,

"PAUL! PAUL! Look at this drink. Do you know what this is?"
"No"
"Well it's the purple nerd drink Paul," He smiles, shaking his head - he knows this drink all too well "and - and - and well, Jmade it but... but look at it! It's not purple." I plop it on the counter, "I need you to make it purple!"

Well, Paul's a perfectionist. He didn't just add a dash of purple, because apparently bars don't normally have food coloring sitting around, but instead made me a 2nd purple nerd drink. Which... according to the couple sitting at Paul's bar looked amazing, well I had to insist that Sex with an Alligator was more amazing and made Paul make me one of those too... (I really need to tip this man more for dealing with me)

So I brought the 2 nerd drinks up to B&B and insisted they try them... Conclusion: J's version tasted more like a purple nerd, but Paul's was actually purple... So being the good little drinker I am... I drank half of each and poured them together to make the perfect purple nerd drink...

What?
I'm a perfectionist.

I also apparently at one point ran into the kitchen to profess my love to the chef.
I also kissed an awesome actual vampire on the cheek, which - let's be real is totally cool!!! I might have also smacked his ass... very inappropriate.
I made the assistant chef kiss me, and then almost burned his hand on an open fire.

And back to that DJ. I had totally forgotten about this.

I had totally forgotten about him, and had B never mentioned it when I woke up the next morning it would have been gone. As we're leaving I'm digging into my purse like a MAD woman... I've been switching purses back and forth a lot lately so in the bottom I discover my cache of unused business cards which have been sitting in there for MONTHS. These business cards are the bottom of the barrel, I've run out of the classy ones and haven't had time to buy more, business cards. I pull one out. Not walk. Not run. Not slide. I skip to the DJ booth. I grab his gold sheba bracelet, and I place my 2 year old business card into his hands, wink, and say,
"SO like, I really fucking want you to call me later, yeah? yeah? that'd be totes awesome!" (yes drunk me sounds like a 14 year old valley girl).

But wait - it get's better. As I'm walking away from him. I look over my shoulder. WINK, and as my head is turned - ram into some guy holding a drink which goes all over him, which signals to me. RUN AWAY.

All that on top of the text messages that progressively went down hill... as my night went - uphill... so I discovered when I checked my phone the following morning. (side note - omg I'm a horrible person)

Now I realize that this isn't as bad as it could have been. I didn't go streaking. I didn't make out with a random guy on the dance floor. I didn't whore it up in a bathroom stall. I didn't lose any money. I didn't get arrested (THANK GOD - because in my state I would have been handing out my phone number there too!) and I didn't really DO anything that makes me a tragedy in heels, but somewhere in Dupont Circle I lost my dignity, and the emotional hangover is really dragging me down.

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