It all started out innocently enough. A friend came over, and we made some burritos. (For those interested: A couple of pounds of ground beef, cooked with chopped onion, crushed garlic, garlic salt, pepper, Tapatio Sauce and cilantro. Flour totrilla with available cabbage, shredded cheddar, diced tomatoes, chopped onions, chopped cilantro, sour cream.) After eating, we cleaned the hot tub. We played with the Airsoft MP5 a bit, then called another friend. As it started getting dark I put on disc one of The Ultimate Punk Collection. The other friend came over and we put on some brats and hot links.
After dinner my friends decided it would be fun to drink alcohol (beer, J&B whiskey, Jaegermeister) and go for a walk along the beach to see what trouble we could get into. (I just finished the Longboard Lager I’d been nursing.) By this time it’s around 23:00. Kind of late for this sleepy seaside holiday community, this tearly in the season. We walked about a mile up the road to Bob’s O.K. Corral and peeped in. Oldsters there, but some younger people. They have karaoke. We decided to give it a pass and went to the Blue Fish. We went inside and sat, but nobody came up to take drink orders. After listening to the bad karaoke (not that the singing was that bad, but the songs sucked), I declared the place lame and we left.
We were going to go to another bar (Sliders) where a friend works. I’ve never been there. As we were walking past Bob’s a drunken Hyundai salesman asked how our night was going. Friend 1 told him it sucked. So the guy opens the boot of his car (not a Hyundai) and offers us some Captain Morgan Parrot Bay rum. It was good. We chased it with some orange juice. He offered to give us some ‘B.C. Bud’. Of course, I don’t use the stuff; nor do my friends. (Not that any of us care if anyone else does.) Hyundai Guy insisted, so Friend 2 took a bud to be nice. I don’t know what happened to it. Friend 2 told Hyundai Guy that he’d buy him a drink (Friend 1 was buying, because neither Friend 2 nor I thought to bring our wallets), and we went into Bob’s.
Friend 2 is married, so he was just having fun making people laugh. Friend 1 was chatting women up. I sat like a lump. There was a girl there from Orange, CA who was dancing (rather provocatively) with everyone in the place. Really, everyone. Since I’m from L.A. I went over to say hello. That’s about as far as it went. ‘Hey, my friend says you’re from Orange!’ ‘I was born there.’ [She turns away and ignores me.] Geez, I didn’t think I was that hideous!
I go back to my perch in the corner of the bar. I check out the karaoke list. I’ve never done it, but if I drank enough I might be tempted. No Sex Pistols. No Ramones. No Pogues. No Madness. Bollocks to that, then! Friend 1 went to get me another G&T and told me to watch his drink. After a while I saw that he was in a conversation with a woman. I took him his drink and he gave me mine. He introduced me to the woman, and then said, ‘I’m not being rude, but I need to talk to her for a minute.’ Fair enough. I went outside with my drink.
After I finished it, I stood around for a while. Friend 1 was still with the woman. The bar would close in 45 minutes. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I decided to walk home and get the car. I was quite sober, but I thought my friends might appreciate not having to stagger over a mile in the dark. 25 minutes later, I was back in the Herald.
But my friends had left. I asked some people outside if they’d seen them, and they indicated they’d wandered off in the direction of Blue Fish. I found them there. They thought I’d ditched them. (I honestly thought that they were having too much fun to notice I was gone; and anyway, I only went to fetch the car.) Friend 2 wasn’t drinking, since he planned on going home later. I finished his beer.
That’s when I found out Friend 1 was talking me up to the woman at Bob’s. He was trying to hook me up. That fell through though, when I wasn’t there.
Friend 1 left the table rather ubruptly. I thought he’d gone to the loo, but he was gone a long time. Closing time (0200) was fast approaching and the waiter wnated to take his nearly full beer. We assured him that Friend 1 would be back to finish it. Turns out Friend 1 was outside talking to a couple of women (a 27-year-old cutie and her 38-year-old sister). I put his beer in my pocket and went outside.
We all talked for a few minutes, and then he invited the women to my house. Ack! I’m a guy, and my house is a mess! I never planned on anyone coming over! Oh, well. Nothing for it but to apologise for the mess. We got to the house, and Older Sister kept a hawkeye on Little Sister. Kinda creapy, really, going over to a stranger’s house with three guys.
Friend 2 made himself scarce on the patio while Friend 1 chatted up Little Sister. Older Sister was fairly good-looking, and I know Friend 1 was trying to hook me up with her. Little Sister went to the patio to talk to Friend 2, whom she thought might have some weed. Ah. They go out and party, then they want to go get high. That’s okay. It’s just that none of use use drugs, so they were disappointed.
Little Sister is 5’ 3", and hates being called ‘cute’ Friend 1 explained that when a guy says ‘cute’ he means it in a way that means she is more desirable than the fantasy women you see on magazine covers. To us, ‘cute’ means pretty, but more accessible than fashion models. ‘The kind of girl we’d like to marry’, as it were. So Friend 1 was trying to explain that ‘cute’ was a good thing, and Little sister was complaining that she doesn’t want to be ‘cute’.
Somehow Friend 1 and Older Sister got into a debate about something. Little Sister said Older Sister loves to debate. After a bit more hanging about, the women left around 0400. We guys hung out for a bit, and Friend 2 decided to get on his bike and ride home. I took the cushions off of the futon-chair and put them on the floor for Friend 1, since he was too drunk to drive. I crawled into my rack about 0430.
Got up around 1030 to find that my coffee maker doesn’t. I boiled water and poured it through the grounds manually. After his queasiness was gone, Friend 1 rode my XJ600 (which I’ve loaned to him, since he sold his Ninja) home around 1230.
And that’s how I spent my Saturday.
(Can’t find a spelling of hell-o-copters)
