An Evening Out With Ms. Fabulous

I've discovered a new joy as a result of my burgeoning alcoholism. For the first time ever in my life, I have a hangover. My head is aching. I am tired. I am starving, but I can't do anything about it because I am also nauseous. I want to sleep and I want to throw up, in no particular order.

This flat out fucking sucks. I mean, I am hurting here people. I don't deserve this hangover, it was not my idea to drink so much. This is what happens when you go out on the town with Ms. Fabulous.

Ms. Fabulous is another former employee of the number factory. She left last year to move to New York, which, being fabulous, is where she's belonged all along. Ms. Fabulous has a way of enchanting people when she talks to them. Get in a conversation with her and you will instantly start to believe that you are her best friend, that the conversation you are having is the most important conversation anyone has ever had, and that you desperately need to buy whatever it is she's trying to sell you. Her own personality is so vibrant and energetic and outgoing, you just can't help but to want to be around her. You can be completely turned off by her attitude, morals, politics, priorities, and agenda, but it doesn't matter. You will like her anyway. You have no choice. Oh, did I mention she is incredibly beautiful?

Ms. Fabulous had e-mailed me that she was going to be in Chicago on business, and did I want to get some dinner? Duh, of course I did. We made plans to hook up after a cocktail meeting she was having yesterday evening. When she called me, she was still cocktailing it, hadn't eaten, and was already 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. I drove downtown to the bar she was at to meet her. She was there drinking with her boss and we chatted for a while, until he left. At this point, Ms. Fabulous gave me the twinkle-eye and announced, "We are leaving this place, it is dead. We are going out on the town and we are going to find some boys and make out with them. We need to drink and make out with boys."

We get into the car and attempt to head to Rush Street. Except I don't have the faintest clue how to get there. Ms. Fabulous sort of does, but she's not really clear on it, plus she's drunk and trying to tell me a bunch of other stories at the same time. Therefore we drove around the city in circles for half an hour before we found what we were looking for. But I didn't lack for entertainment. Oh no, I did not. Ms. Fabulous kept up a running commentary for the duration of the trip. Here's some snippets:

"We could go to this one club, but I'm not talking to my friend who works there right now, because whenever I come and stay with her she gets mad that I always come home at 10 in the morning."

"I had this dream where I was having sex with this woman and it was the best sex of my life. I woke up thinking I have to find her. Really. Because if it's really that good, I might as well just ditch the boys altogether."

"I mean, come on, who HASN'T made out with random girls at a bar?"

"I stayed at that hotel once and I had this boy come up to my room and I just fucked the shit out of him. Done and done. It was a scene."

Obviously, we have many common interests.

We arrived at Oak and Rush and parked the car. As of this writing, that is the last time I saw my car. Alistair is either sitting right there waiting for me, or he's hanging out at the impound lot with the other cars who have drunks for owners. I plan to mount a rescue mission when I leave work today.

Stop One: Tavern on Rush. Ms. Fabulous assured me that the make the Best Mango Martinis there. So I had three. In the meantime, Ms. Fabulous immediately snagged a tall goofy looking guy. He guessed her age at 23 (she's 28). Her response to that was, "No honey, I'm not, but if I was we could go to my hotel and have a great time." She said this with one arm wrapped around his waist and the opposing hand stroking his chest. He was more than happy to pay for all our drinks. Unfortunately, Ms. Fabulous did such a number on him that his dorky ass started following us to the next bar (which I believe is called the Whiskey, but who can be sure?).

Stop Two: The Whiskey (potentially). Dork of York has followed us for two blocks, begging us to get in a cab with him and "go somewhere". We duck into the Whiskey (maybe). I am using the word "duck" literally, as she dragged me by the hand into the bar, down to the far end and crouched down on the ground behind 4 nice gentleman in suits, who were understandably intrigued. Once we were sure we had rid ourselves of Dork-o, we struck up a conversation with Ms. Fabulous' new targets. They all work for Smith Barney, one is originally from the west side of Cleveland (Westlake) and one had lived in Lakewood for three years (the suburb of Cleveland where we store all the trendy bars). The boys all took turns making out with Ms. Fabulous. But what they actually seemed more excited about were the times when none of them could make out with her because she was busy making out with me. Actually I was more interested in that myself. That and the "Will NHL hockey have a season next year?" debate I got into with one of the guys, who was quite taken with my ability to speak intelligently about sports. We smoked all their cigarettes (last time, Mary I swear. She made me do it...) and they put all of our pineapple martinis on their tab. I would have been happy to spend the whole of the evening chatting with them and making out with her, but they had a meeting in the morning (didn't we all?) so they begged off and headed for home. We headed for a club.

Stop three: Some club with a french sounding name that starts with "P". Several boys our age are milling around outside. The cover is $20. Ms. Fabulous announces she is NOT paying that. And of course, because she's Ms. Fabulous, some dude shells out $60 clams to get us all in. Now by this time I have had way too much alcohol, and I'm not feeling so hot. A nice gentleman from India named Vijay gallantly offers me his lap to lay down in. Ms. Fabulous is across the table sucking face with the guy we came in with. Vijay is trying to kiss me. I am trying to sleep and not throw up. Eventually, Vijay decides it's best if I go home, so he puts me in a cab. I went home, fell onto my bed and passed out with my boots on and my purse still on my shoulder.

Ms. Fabulous called from New York the next day. She had spent the morning throwing up between presentations, then threw up on the plane and in the cab basically the whole way home. The guy she had talked into paying our cover apparently wants to buy her the moon. He left her two messages to meet him at some jeweler at lunch because he wanted to buy her a diamond necklace, and he also wants her to travel to Australia with him in the Spring. She can't remember his name. She didn't seem at all phased by this; I think this kind of stuff happens to her all the time.

As for me...no more martinis. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go find Alistair and then hide in the trunk where it will be dark and quiet.