Ready To Share the Saga

Let me preface this post with this: If you know me, or even if you don't know me, you may come up with a slightly different opinion of me after reading this post. So, having said that, if you like me, and want to continue 'respecting' me, please quit reading now, because, as I felt for myself Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and still Saturday evening, I wouldn't respect me either.

Here goes:

It was ladies night. Meaning me and the girls were going out on the town. And boy, did I need a night out. So, I got all gussied up, but not in my $14.99 Zena jeans freshly purchased at TJMaxx because as my good friend pointed out, I just shouldn't wear them (and she was right!). However, in my defense, I can't morally justify paying over a hundred dollars for Lucky jeans (sorry Suzie-Q!) when I don't even spend $100 on a whole outfit, but she has promised to take me out to update my wardrobe, and admittedly, I definitely need some updating.

So, out to dinner with the chickies and I order my first drink (well, actually my second drink as I had a cranberry vodka at home). My first drink of choice: a stoli O, vanilla stoli and OJ martini. But, I requested it sans OJ. Mistake number one of the evening.

Midway through our meal, I get my third drink of the night--the first of about a million appletinis (and may I make it known here publicly that I may never, ever, EVER drink an appletini again).

Dinner is yummy, (the first time around at least!) and we feign a friend's birthday and get a whopping huge dessert that costs near $14 FOR FREE ... the bottomless-Oreo-something-or-the-other-ice-cream-delight. Then we go to the bar for more dessert--a cranberry vodka.

If I knew how to do it--somebody please tell me--I'd link the restaurant here, but you can find it if you Google Hugo's Frog Bar, Naperville.

So, what' s the count now? Two martinis and two vodka cranberries, and the time is 10 pm. Feeling pretty good at this point.

Our sane, responsible friends (read between the lines: the ones that have children that still wake in the middle of the night) say goodbye regretfully (because they are very fun to party with!) and we meet up with my other friend's "freshly-divorced-and-on-the-prowl" sister and her friends.

Mistake number two: Next bar--Bar Louie's, another hot spot in Naperville. First vision when walking in this bar is a girl dancing seductively on a speaker, wearing a half t-shirt that says "California" on it, and baring her implants and belly-pierced navel. I was disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. Until my friend, S., said, "Remember when we used to dance on the speakers at Amnesia's in college?"

Now I was even more disgusted at how old I have become.

Mistake number three: I ordered my first Tease martini, and at the time, I thought it was a delightful blend of vodka and apple flavors with a hint of cinnamon, oh yeah, and more hint of vodka.

Then we run into a guy who was, swear to God, wearing a t-shirt that said, "I have a big d*ck, so I make all the rules." Of course, being the extrovert that I am, and being the completely wasted girl that I was, I challenged the innocent young man.

"Prove it."

He must not have been as confident as he thought, because there was no showing going on. But he did come back with the age-old-six-year-old statement: "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Hmmm... to show or not to show, that was the question, and also, how drunk was I really? I made him a deal. It was 12:10 a.m. I said, "You come back here at 12:40 a.m. and the peep show is on."

Mistake number four: My second Tease martini.

What's the tally up to now? Let's see, one before dinner, two at dinner, one after dinner, one Teaser and now the second Teaser brings us up to, drum roll please...six, four of these being martinis (which I publicly [sp] announce again, "I may never drink again.")

Happily, a trip to the ladies room gets me a closer look at California gal and she turns out to be one of those ten-at-two girls. Close up, she's definitely not anything attractive. At ten p.m., she's likely to be a two on the scale, but at 2 a.m., I'm sure she ranks a ten... hence, the ten-at-two; two-at-ten rule. Ever hear of that one?

I do remember most of the evening, and recall high-fiving girls in the bathroom who were in their thirties. We are women, hear us roar! The twenty-somethings just looked at us like... ugh, I can't even relate to you how the twenty-somethings looked at us, but I've got something to say to them: THEY'LL BE THIRTY AND FLIRTY SOON ENOUGH!

Here is when I look at my watch, and yes, unbelievably, I am able to still see vaguely straight. I see that it is 12:30 a.m.

"Hey guys, we have got to get out of here because if t-shirt boy comes back, I made him a promise I don't want to keep."

Mistake number five: Go to another bar and keep drinking. The Lantern. The most of what I remember at this trendy little shot-and-a-beer place that I haven't caroused in since B.K. (before kids), is that it is very much the same cute little place with the popcorn machine and dart boards. The only thing I can't understand is why it looks like they let underaged kids into the bar. This is when I realize, they are not underaged, but this is how twenty-one-year olds look.

Pee break here offers me the opportunity to share thoughts with a woman that I would normally not express publicly. Let me state here, I am not bi-sexual, but do take pleasure in the looks of nice looking, normal women (NOT CALIFORNIA GIRL cuz she was simply put, a skank). So, I saw this very tall girl who *ahem* had on a nice shirt and her boobs looked, okay, nice. So, I told her. I prefaced it with "Don't take this the wrong way..." and told her her boobs looked great in her shirt, and what kind of bra did she have on.

And, I'm not the only one interested in knowing, because suddenly, there's like six of us flocking this woman who is introducing herself as Colleen and tells us that she got her bra at Marshall Field's while lifting up her shirt so we may get a closer look at this majestic piece of cloth.

"What size is it?" one asks.
"How much did it cost?" from another patron.
"Do they have it in chartreuse?" asks yet another.

Colleen very graciously answers all of our questions, lets us fondle the back of her bra to read what brand it is, and tells us to go find her sister Ann, who works at Marshall Field's and she'll "hook" us up with a new bra. LOL--hook, get it, bra, I am soo funny. How do I come up with this shit?

Mistake number five: Now it really gets bad. Next bar, Features, where I am amazed at the rennovations and completely blown away with the clientele, the decor, the drinks. And, I regrettfully admit... the men.

Somehow, and I don't know how this happens, I order another martini, and I think this one is just a plain old appletini, or maybe it's a cranberry vodka... but this is where the night gets foggy. And, I meet a man. A man named Douglas? A twenty-three year old boy. Who is paying me attention. I'm sickened by what I'm about to admit.

I let him grope me. In the bar. In public. In the absence of my beloved and doting and handsome husband, I let a stranger grope me.*

Now, fifteen years ago, this wouldn't be so shocking. In fact, it would be more shocking had it not happened on a girl's night out. But the problem here now, fifteen years later, is that I am married, I love my husband, I would be sickened to death if I were to ever cheat, drunk or not.

I whispered some things into this stranger's ear I don't dare divulge here, for it would make you a reader of the past. You would click this blog closed, never to want to read MMMM ever again, but certainly, this post must prove to you that yes, I am a Manic Mom.

The lights come up in the bar, yet my dream is far from over. I say goodbye to my would be lover, had it been fifteen years earlier, but maybe not, because if it were fifteen years earlier, dear Douglas would be... (and yes, since I am a wordsmith and not a mathematician, this is where I must remove my fingers from the keyboard and do some simple math with a pen and paper)...

Eight. Years. Old.

As much as I am stupid here with my almost love affair, I am smart enough to have a smart friend with me, and between the two of us, we make it to a taxi. In this taxi, we are joined by sister divorcee (who was a lot of fun and had really nice friends, I must say!) and two other men, strange men we didn't know, but I do remember one was really tall and therefore must have been really cute because I equate tallness with cuteness, just like I can imagine making love to Peter Gabriel or Dave Matthews or John Mayer or Coldplay's lead singer just because the music is so beautiful and it wouldn't matter what the person looked like. (I would probably choose Dave Matthews first now, just because Peter is looking sooo old these days, and Chris from Coldplay has a daughter named Apple and a wife named Gwyneth).

So, our lovely taxi driver takes these boys to their requested address, where they then beg us ladies to come in for a moment. Since I've had my head in my own lap for the whole drive, I have no idea where we are and thank God for smart and responsible friend S, we leave in the taxi, but not before she reminds taxi driver to hit the start button over because we are not adding that pay to OUR fare.

We then drop lovely sister off, and again, I still do not know where we are because head is in lap.

Mistake number six: I feel the need to throw up and in as nice of a tone as I can muster, with my head in my lap, I ask the kind taxi driver if he may pull over so I may release. He pulls over, I release (and most of it makes it out of the taxi), I release some more, into a box of Kleenex kind taxi driver keeps on hand for situations such as this I am sure. I apologize, I'm sure, slurringly and profusely, over and over, and beg for death.

Kind, loving, beautiful friend gets me home and tips the taxi driver $10 for his troubles. And he was such a nice taxi driver, I do feel remorse for throwing up, but come on, this has got to happen a lot of times because why are we taking taxis anyway? Because we are drunk and incapable of driving, thinking straight and keeping six-eight drinks down.

At home, I manage to strip off jeans and leave them in the garage and crawl my sad ass to my bedroom, where my husband is snoring soundly. I believe I must have checked on my angels because I do that no matter what, each and every night. Then I came back downstairs, put the puke-laden jeans into the washing machine and washed them. Cleanliness next to Godliness.

A shower to cleanse remaining vomit and I almost fall asleep in there until I hear hubby come in to make sure I'm alive.

"Go to bed," he says.

I do, and I stay there until 6:30 p.m. the next day, emerging only to vomit, pee, drink 1/2 glass of Gatorade, vomit some more, take a shower and eventually rise to find food, where I cannot even eat until 8:00 p.m.

And all day, my body aches. I feel my skin turn hot, then cold, my head pulses to the tune of badgirlbadgirlbadgirlbadgirl over and over again. I got hot and then cold simultaneously, I have bad dreams that I cannot decipher, and think these are dreams that reallly happened. I dream I am kissing the boy, fully realizing I'm married. I dream I whisper into his ear after he begs me to come home with him: "If I weren't a happily married, thirty-five year old mother of three, I would take you home and rock your world!" I shove covers off, I curl up under them, I toss and turn, my shoulder aches from lying on one side for too long. I check the clock, wishing for it to be the next day already, so I can be a functioning human being.

And I feel guilt. Immense guilt for my blatant acts of flirting, for letting a twenty-three-year old grope me, for drinking so much I miss the whole day with my family, for not considering my family, my children. I am a wreck all day, staggering through physical pain, emotional guilt and loss of respect for myself.

Hubby comes back from taking the kids to the park because he is so awesome and he knows I feel so terrible. I hear them come home and I call out to him to come up. He places his cool hands on my arms, my face, they feel so cool and I can't get enough of the coolness. I want to go outside and fall onto the snow, to feel numbing coldness.

"I have to tell you something."

"What?"

"I let a guy grope me."

"Did you kiss him?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" But he touched me. He touched my butt."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Okay. I'm not mad, I grab your girlfriends' butts all the time."

He does?!!?!?!?

So, today is a new day. I awaken before the children, stretch into my bed and think the best words in the world ever:

I am alive!
And I'm never drinking ever, ever again.**

*He didn't grope me all that much, really.

**Yeah, right.