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| Do as I say, not as I do. |
That may be the most dangerous phrase in the world.
Because you know what it means right? It means you lost your entire wallet last night, or at the very minimum your ID and all of your credit cards. But because of technology you no longer have to deal with that right away.
Saturday morning I woke up in my bed, which is always a small win. My phone was on its charger. How responsible!
Things went quickly downhill from there. My fitbit, my precious purple fitbit that I got on Wednesday, gone. My wallet that contained a couple hundred in cash (for obvious reasons) my credit card, my WORK credit card, like 4 various work related key cards, my goddamn driver's license. GONE!
Also I was naked and wrapped in a damp towel.
Why? Why did any of this happen?
Well I'll tell you why. I fucked up. I am a fraud. I am the worst. THE WORST! Remember when I wrote a post last week outlining what I perceive to be as very simple steps to hosting your homies for the weekend? Remember that? It was Friday. In fact, I posted it just a couple hours before my friends got here. It was fresh in my mind.
I didn't follow my own rules. I blacked out Friday, hard.
Let me explain:
1. Wanting to look cool and successful in front of my visiting friends I showed up to Nikki's Friday night and ordered 5 pitchers. I drank a portion. This was fine.
2. Wanting to do a fun dinner, I suggested Mao's. We each got a personal bottle of wine and even some champagne, because why not? This was also fine.
3. Then we decided that after going to happy hour AND a BYOB dinner we needed to pregame, so we came back to my apartment and pregamed. This was starting to get grey area on the rules I had outlined.
4. After facing a bottle of Fireball, Tito's, Grey Goose, 4 cases of beer, 100 mg of Aderall, and aforementioned champagne we went to Townhouse. This is in clear violation of the "medium rage
I advocated Friday.
5. After dancing my face off at Townhouse until close I DEMANDED that we have an afterparty at a friend's house. Now this is just blatant disregard for the established rules.
6. After we got kicked out of said after party I decided we will go back to my house and have an after-after party. Jesus.
I must have been up until 6am and felt compelled to take a shower at some point, not an uncommon move for me since I routinely lose 10 pounds in water weight at Townhouse.
That brings me back to the beginning of the post. "Do you have a phone and a passport?"
It was Saturday morning, my friends were already at the bar watching hockey, two people had come by to wake me up and drag me to the bar. I was missing a lot of shit, I was in shambles, a rational person would have taken the day off, maybe picked up the pieces and made it out for Saturday night.
But I am an irrational person, willing to use Venmo to turn his friends into ATMs. And hell, I've got some pretty cool passport stamps that I like to brag about.
"Yes, I have my phone and a passport."
"Then what are we still doing here, let's go."
Saturday:
Of course I enjoy that Pacific time means that games start early, sometimes absurdly so. However, it also means that sometimes you are at a bar at 10AM. As was the case this past Saturday.
Now I'm not saying it's impossible to get a group of guys to rent bikes and go on a ride after 4 Bloody Mary's, I'm just saying that it's easier to convince them to go to another bar. So began our Saturday bar crawl. Where didn't we go? I think from Nikki's we went to Waterfront Cafe, from Waterfront Cafe we bought a bunch of beer and played volleyball. From Volleyball we went to another BYOB dinner (because that worked out so well for me the night before!)
By 6pm I was destroyed. What I just described to you may only sound like 2 bars, a restaurant and some fun in the sun, but I assure you, nothing good happens when you start drinking before noon. But as one is wont to do, I pounded at minimum two bottles of wine at dinner and booked the SHIT out of an Uber SUV to take us to Bungalow. (All weekend I was aggressively grabbing Ubers and over paying for things with Venmo, because when you don't have a wallet this is all you're really good for.)
We go to Bungalow, the line was maybe two miles long. We walked right in and I immediately started wondering if all the girls in line thought I was famous. I'm tall, athletic-ish...I could be a Los Angeles Dodger, maybe like a reserve Right Fielder. But by the time we got in and situated, I was so blasted that I couldn't speak to people. This is fine at some bars. At Townhouse I crush when I can't talk, but there is no dance floor at Bungalow, it requires that you be lucid enough to communicate.
At one point, I saw a group of girls and decided I would go hit on them. Out of all the possible opening lines in the world, I panicked and said "Would you girls like shots of Fireball?"
"Um sure."
Would you like shots of fireball, what a clown. I didn't even have a fucking wallet, how did I expect to buy these chicks a $200 round of flavored whiskey. I decided it was time to pivot and take the group in a new direction.
We must go to the Victorian. It's got a dance floor! I won't have to speak, it will be great.
"We have to go."
"Why? My friends just got in line."
"I just promised those girls shots and I'm too drunk to be here...besides your friends are black they're never getting in. Send them to Victorian. I'll get us in."
Begrudgingly my friends agree to follow me to another Santa Monica bar.
Now if you're unfamiliar with The Victorian, it's a very cool bar. It resembles an old Victorian style house and boasts 3 floors with very distinct vibes. Upstairs is 'The Attic' they play mellow, hip music.
The main floor is a sprawling outdoor patio to sip cocktails with friends. Either of these two would have been good choices for me. But I chose the nuclear option...go down to The Basement and ask random strangers on the dance floor for amphetamines.
Now I wouldn't usually recommend going to dark rock clubs and asking people for drugs, but sometimes it works and I think Saturday was one of those nights, because once the band took its intermission break I decided that the only option was to go back to Townhouse and just triple down on the debauchery. At this point I'm certain I was leading with the tongue on any girl with a pulse.
I would like to say that was it, the last stop on our bender, but I'm fairly certain we were intent on making sure my apartment was in fact never livable again because we threw ANOTHER after party and nearly burned it to the ground. Almost 24 hours of straight drinking. Disgusting. Oh and we never got the hotel! Ha!
Sunday:
Sunday morning I wake up not caring if my friends felt as shitty as I did today, I was going to drive down to Anaheim and go to a Blackhawks game. I walk out to the mailbox to grab my tickets that had been overnighted to me and am instead greeted by a note from UPS.
"Your package was undeliverable because no one was there to sign."
Whoever decided to make this a standard shipping practice is a cunt and should be killed. Cue a 45 minute call to Uber Seat and Seat Geek in which I drunkenly threatened to murder this guy's entire family at least once. I called my brother who works at a UPS shipping facility in Indiana like he was going to be able to pull some fucking strings.
Around 10am it sank in. No one at UPS, Uber Seat or Seat Geek gave a fuck that my tickets didn't come, no one was going to do anything about it. I wasn't going to the game.
No wallet, no Fitbit, no Hawks tickets. I did what I do best and took a pout nap.
***
I woke up and everyone was gone. I look at my phone, 2pm. The game is almost over. I have a text "Do you have your phone and a passport?"
I could've told them to fuck off.
I had fulfilled my duties as host. I gave them a place to stay, I showed them 2 incredible nights. I should get a good Yelp review.
But I have a sickness. I can't protect myself from myself.
So I go down to Nikki's for a third time in 3 days, watch the Hawks get blown out and the Clippers complete one of the most epic collapses in NBA history.
Mercifully two of the three have their flights and it's time for them to go home. (I say that like I'm glad they left but I wish they lived here)
I should go home too and find my wallet!
But then a chick hits me up and we decide to go to Hinano for a pitcher or 12.
Ok, I'll look during Game of Thrones.
But then all the chicks come back and we keep drinking. I fall asleep on the couch watching Paddington (yes, the talking bear movie) I wake up at 2 o clock in the morning. Ugh.
I'm too hungover.
I can't get out of bed.
It's 7:15am. I'm just not going to have a wallet today. I'll ask my someone for a $20 and get a new debit card at lunch. I've got maybe 5 minutes for a hot shower. Today is going to be the worst day of my life,
7:20am. Oh, I found my Fitbit, must have taken it off the shower during my blacked out 6am shower. Cool.
7:25am. Might as well lift up my mattress in case the wallet fell under the bed.
And there it fucking is, with all my shit, it was just down there the whole time.
By noon I had an apology and a full refund from my ticket broker, by 7pm I was home and in bed.
So what did we learn from all of this?
Nothing. I learned fucking nothing.
I got away with it. In fact I saved money, I didn't have a wallet all weekend so anything I wanted I had to ask someone to buy for me, and at 9am on Sunday I'm not sure I really wanted to drive to Orange County, park my car and sit in the last row of the Honda Center.
But nope, it all just sort of worked out. I deserve to be punished for living this way, but all I have are just some great memories with a great group, some stellar photos and some stories for next time.
Your friends can move away to Austin, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, London, India, anywhere...nothing ever changes. My dad of all people hit me up in the middle of the weekend and said to me 'You will never have more fun than hanging out with old friends."
I couldn't agree more. I want you all to come back right now (actually give me a couple weeks to recover) or move here. And you know what the greatest part of our weekend was? We never went east of Lincoln fucking ONCE. Hope the tourist in you isn't disappointed.
To those of you on the fence, feel free to come visit because clearly I didn't learn my lesson; unless the lesson is this...hosting your buddies for the weekend is fucking awesome.
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