July 26, 2003
So upon telling Paul Bui a somewhat discontinued version of what happened last night, he said that it definitely merits a blog. I thought about it, and realized that he is right. I’m not giving my blog enough credit, so here goes the story of my night, being blogged.
It started out being a company event: the college interns and Associate Consultants’ dinner night out. We had cocktails at a really expensive loft that somebody at Bain had just bought. The entire place (aside from the posh-looking exterior) could have been mistaken to be the New York ghettos, but done on purpose for the “industrial” look that I wasn’t aware was in style. The elevators had pink fluorescent lights that shined up and industrial grade sheet metal randomly stapled to the walls, and the hallways looked like a musty college dorm. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Jackie Chan had come running out from some corner chasing a guy in a bad Jackie Chan do New York movie. Our restaurant destination was Loca Luna where we had reservations for all 50 billion of us (okay, more like 20). This place is the equivalent of Mellow Mushroom (for those of you who know Mellow Mushroom) on about a pound of crack. I remember leaning toward the girl sitting next to me and saying, “So is this when I pull out the weed?” The lights (purple swirlies on the ceiling), the decor (a picasso-esque gray swirls of a naked woman on the bathroom door), the music (so called latin salsa), all contributed to my feeling of somehow having gotten fearfully high.
The restaurant turned into a dance club around 10:30 or 11, but none of us were dancing, all opting to just sit around, drink, and try to talk over the live band blasting “latin salsa”. Two of the girls were wiping each others’ butts off with water-soaked napkins (one had sat on something in her chair), and one of the intern guys (George) saw this and started rocking back and forth in his chair, ruffling his hair, mouth open, eyes rolling, all in all losing it. At some point around 11:30, right when we decided to leave and head to some Buckhead bars, Ryan called.
Luckily I was soon outside, so I no longer had to fight the bad latin salsa trying to drown out my phone. However, I was still trying to listen/talk to Ryan, pay attention to what’s going on, where we’re going, who’s driving (me), who’s riding with me, all at the same time. George all of a sudden asked me, “Who are you talking to?” I (still on the phone) replied, “Ryan” with a look implying “this is my boyfriend.” George: “Let me talk to him.” I was so surprised that I handed the phone to George, who at the same time handed me his cell phone and said “you talk to this guy.” George and Tom ended up riding in my car, both apparently seriously drunk with bladders about to overflow. As I stopped at a red light, they both jumped out to urinate on the side of the road. When the light turned green, they hopped back in, but apparently George wasn’t done. He finished his deal at the next red light. Once in Buckhead, I (in the middle lane of a 3 lane per side street) got stopped by a slow moving car ahead trying to change lanes. At this point, George decided that he really wanted to meet up with a friend in another bar, so he opened the car door and hopped out, in the middle of a 6 lane busy street. Tom and I are baffled, but I continued to drive to find parking, while Tom moaned from the back that he doesn’t know how much longer he can take being in the car (read: I’m going to get sick).
The night ended with my driving home having dropped off Tom at a bar because I was first off, fed up with everybody by this point, and second had no ID to show to get into any place. At least I got to talk to Ryan after I got back. I called to apologize for the phoning fiasco earlier with said drunk intern George, and the two of us chatted up a storm. Far better than any other portion of my evening.