I recently made a commitment to not party drink during the week. I’ve decided my job is important to me and that includes functioning at a somewhat higher level than I can typically manage after a night of staying out / up until 2 in the morning.
HOWEVER.
I had a flight to O-H. (I-O!) last Thursday morning for the start of a 4-day weekend, which magically transformed Wednesday night into a Friday night for me.
(By the way, this story hits the category of ‘Transitions Gone Awry’ because I really see it as a segue into leaving for Ohio, even though the flight itself went smoothly. It also falls into that category a bit because I had such good intentions to go home and start packing by 8 p.m. Such good intentions … intentions that got way-laid so thoroughly.)
I started the evening out by playing a few games of pool at Aleworks with a co-worker. We have decided to be pool playing buddies once a week (but, we have also already discussed how we’ll probably cheat on each other with other pool buddies).
Because we had to wrap up the last game and pay the bill, I was running a little late for my next event of the evening … girl crush time with Bars*. My phone had been dead for hours so I didn’t have a lot of options other than getting to the Crystal rooftop a bit late and hoping she was still there. Our date was set for 6:30. I arrived at exactly 6:40. As I blew through the bar, I briefly ran into a long lost HBT friend (Blondie*) but, after a super quick hello, ran upstairs to the rooftop to make sure I hadn’t missed Bars. The plan was most definitely to have a drink, do a quick round of debriefing / catchup / hugs & love and head home relatively soon thereafter.
(*Names have been changed to immortalize the not-so-innocent.)
I awkwardly sat on the rooftop alone for the next 20 minutes trying to figure out if Bars had already come and gone or if plans had changed and I just hadn’t been informed of them thanks to my lack of working communication device.
Eventually I decided that ship had sailed and headed back downstairs. Blondie was still down there, playing pool with her boyfriend and some co-workers, so, I decided ‘Fuck it. I’m having a beer with you people for a bit.’
And so began the derailment of my night.
I mean, it started out fine. Like they do.
We all had a beer and lounged around the bar a bit. We all wandered out back for a bit so the smokers could smoke. We all made some small talk.
And then one of Blondie’s co-workers suggested we go hills cruising until dark, enjoy the evening and the sunset, then come back and hit the bars once the sun had gone down. WELL HELL YES. As with the Party in the Pasture moment in my life, it had been a long LONG damn time since I’d gone hills cruising.
We picked up a couple of 6-packs and headed out to a trailhead in the foothills of the Bridgers where we proceeded to spend the next couple of hours sitting on top of the car, passing around Montuckys and PBRs and generally being ridiculous.
The sun set.
We eventually came back to town.
As it happened, one of Blondie’s co-workers was tall, blond, good-looking and funny, and I was definitely trying to work some big-blue-eyed magic on him. So when we got back to town, fueled by Montucky enthusiasm and energy, I definitely decided the best course of action was to continue tagging along with them. From bar to bar. Where we took shot after shot.
I’m not entirely sure at what point Blondie and her boyfriend dropped out of the picture, but, it still seemed like things were going well with Tall Guy and I’m not one to abandon an evening once I’m several shots in so when he wanted to play pool somewhere and The Molly Brown was the closest available option, I was more than game for the somewhat lengthy hike to get there.
Sequentially, the timing of the night may fall apart a bit at this point, but I am very certain of all the remaining major events. I can definitely confirm that there was a brief foray into the Molly Brown. We drank a pint of beer. Nobody played pool. What I’m NOT sure of is whether the ‘short-cut’ through the construction zone happened to or from the pit stop at the Molly.
One of my most consistent drinking themes is enthusiasm. This most directly translates into physical activities like wanting to climb trees or race people or drunk wrestle or tackle or … in this case … climb fences. Because there is NO reason to skirt around the construction zone when I could just do a jump over the pit in the ground. And it’s both foolish and being a bit of a quitter to backtrack when I could just climb over the chain link fence (in a dress).
I actually think I made it over a fence or two (mostly) successfully. I recall some exasperation on the part of Tall Guy that 1) I refused most of his proffered help and 2) we could easily just have gone a route that didn’t require help. Even with my more successful maneuvers, I wasn’t landing the fence climbing very well and I finally had a moment where, going over / falling off the other side, my hand snagged on the twisted metal triangle portion along the ridge of the fence. It ripped a nice healthy cut in the flesh of my hand between my thumb and index finger. I remember looking down and thinking ‘well that is bleeding fairly profusely’. (What I didn’t realize at the time was that I also earned a nice ass bruise to complement my mangled hand from that fumble.)
I made a somewhat big deal out of my bleeding hand but luckily Tall Guy had bandaids in his car. He bandaged me up and we proceeded to sleep in his vehicle since nobody was in any shape to drive anywhere. If you can’t jump a fence, you can’t drive a car.
Around 5:30 a.m., I woke up and realized it was time to head home. I stopped at a gas station to get nachos (I think I might not have survived last Thursday without those nachos. I really don’t feel I’m exaggerating here.) and made it home around 6 a.m. where I managed to sleep for approximately two more hours before it was time to get up and pack for the trip to Ohio. (One can only put off things like packing for trips for so long. Sample time-frame : 12 hours. I seriously overshot my schedule.)
I stopped by Z & M’s for breakfast on the way to the airport where I sort of glossed through a summary of the night. I really didn’t want to really look at my hand in the light of day and assess the actual damage but Z made me. It did not look delicious. I kind of tried rinsing it a little under the faucet but I did not have the heart to scrub it so Z dabbed some peroxide on it (pro tip : don’t do this. Nurses frown on this method. It is NOT doctor approved.) He wanted to cram some cotton balls in there, but I had him go with a folded up piece of paper towel instead. He taped it to my hand (there was a severe lack of actual medical supplies) and when I walked back into the living room from the bathroom, I almost passed out. No joke. Not from pain or anything like that … it was just one of those odd moments of ‘Ho boy. It is time to sit down now right here on the floor.’
I was subsequently loaded onto a plane where I just tried really hard not to think about my hand and its probable need of a few cute little stitches. (There had really been no time.)
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Up next! : Part 2 : Sonia gets to Ohio. Goes to a real doctor. Doctor does not approve of Sonia’s medical choices up to this point.
Planning is for Amateurs 