Last Friday Night

In case you don’t know me, I’m a bit of a spaz. My husband, friends and family can all attest to this. I’m quirky, a little all over the place and just plain nuts sometimes.

Last Friday night was a great example. No, I didn’t mean to reference the latest Katy Perry video, but here it is anyway in case you haven’t seen it. It’s doing well on the Top 20 Countdown, and the pop lover in me has been all over this one. (Well, after Gaga’s and Britney’s latest videos at least)

Back to my last Friday night.

It all started with dinner and drinks in the West Village with my friend Kelly.

(Mom, this is where you should probably stop reading.)

Two margaritas, two shots, a bourbon and coke and a gin and tonic later, I was a little toasted. That may not seem like a whole lot, but these are New York City drinks. They’re the real deal. Kelly and I said goodbye, and she headed for her subway while I hopped onto mine. I took the 1 downtown to South Ferry, where I had to make the transfer to an N. The N was pulling away, but an R was sitting there on the other side of the platform (my drunken head didn’t think clearly about the obvious…other side of the platform = train going the other way) so I get on. Unsure of what I was doing, I asked the blue-eyed white kid sitting across from me in the car if he was headed to Brooklyn, and he said yes.

The subway starts moving, we get to the first stop. I am on a Manhattan, not Brooklyn-bound train. I told this kid, Doug, that he was wrong and led me astray and I was getting off the train. He followed me. He really was harmless, being he was smaller than me, but it still shook me as a bit odd. I had been carrying a knife around in my bag, and told Doug if he didn’t leave me alone I was going to cut him. He called me a bitch, I hailed down a cab, I left that weirdo far behind. I had tried calling Mikey somewhere in that charade of events, because I had been near his hotel and thought I could stop by and say hi. He didn’t answer, so I stopped contacting him after two attempts.

I get to Brooklyn, I pay the $26.50 cab fare (at this rate, I didn’t care to be on the subway for an hour, so I said fuck it) and made my way to my building.

Sidenote: Because I couldn’t comprehend text messages properly, I was under the impression that a text I had received earlier in the night from Mikey meant that he was staying over the hotel where he worked that night.

Sidenote 2: There are 3 keys needed for my apartment. One for the building itself, and then two for the door. I have only been carrying around the key to the top lock when I go running, because I’m ridiculous and thought that third key was just such an extra burden.

So, I get to my door. The bottom lock is locked, I forgot to bring that third key, and I am fucked. What is a girl to do when she is locked out and the guy with the key is in Manhattan? Go back to Manhattan and get the key, right?

Wrong. If you’re me, and you’re intoxicated, you decide you’re going to break into your own apartment.

So I walk to the street behind my building, I cut through someone’s backyard, I take 10 minutes to find a break in the chain link fence that I can slip through, and I succeed. I get into the dark alley behind my building and realize it’s impossible to figure out which window is mine. It’s too dark. I call Shane, who at this point is aware of my drunken mess, and I tell him I am going to just sleep on the street until there’s daylight. Even through the phone, Shane is wonderful at talking me down and making me get a grip. We hang up with a plan for me to just suck it up, hail down a cab and go to Mikey’s hotel to get the key. But breaking back through the fence wasn’t as easy as breaking in.

It was so dark back there I could not find the break in the fence. After awhile of looking, I have to pee. I pop a squat on the building (classy, I know) and resume my search. Some time later, I really can’t recall how long it took, I find the break, I start sneaking through this backyard and then there were headlights. Headlights of a car that was pulling right into the driveway of the home I was trespassing through.

Now I’m used to the Texas mentality of if you are trespassing on someone’s yard, they have the right to shoot you. I decided my best option was to remain calm, come out from the shadows behind the shed, and introduce myself. When the big white dude came out of his car, I think it went something like this:

Me: “Oh heyyyyy, that’s my building right there. I sort of locked myself out and I’m so sorry, but I went through your backyard. Please don’t shoot me.”

The guy: “I don’t shoot ladies.”

I booked it out of there, hailed down a cab, and went to Mikey’s hotel.

When I got there, after another near-$30 cab fare, I explained my situation to the dude at the front desk, and how I needed him to wake Mikey up so I could get the key I needed. The guy tells me Mike isn’t there, that he wouldn’t be until the morning. Cool!

Mikey called me right around then. It was 1:30am at this point. He tells me he is at the apartment in Brooklyn. Lol, right?

Being the sweet, loving, caring, older brother-like cousin that he is, he put me up in a room at his hotel for the night. What a guy.

The next day, I had plans to meet my friend Rachel and we hung out in the city all day. That evening, when I made it back to Brooklyn, I emptied out my bag. And you know what I found?

The fucking key to the bottom lock. Everything comes full circle, doesn’t it?

That’s my latest (and hopefully last for awhile) adventure in being a spastic hot mess. Hope you enjoyed that one.