Sounds Like Something I'd Say… My Weekend, in a Nutshell

Friday afternoons are lovely. Summer Friday afternoons are even lovelier.

Add a patio, 7(-ish?) buckets o’ beer, some fantastic (and comedic) company, and you’ve got yourself a helluva evening.

Among the topics discussed: walking in on other people fornicating (umm… like my grandparents… don’t ask), taking nude pictures and the possible consequences, our fantastic waiter (who was not only adept at service, but story telling as well)…

And one little nugget in particular that I didn’t remember until Shannon reminded me of it: Apparently, a couple of weeks ago at the R&R Hotel on the H Street corridor, I was tired. This part I remember; the night before had been my last night working at Bar Screwie, which meant I was there til at least 3am. We (the bartenders of my bar and the surrounding venues) also went to the sketchy 24-hour Chinese food place next door to celebrate the birthday of one of our coworkers (yes, at 3am), which meant I got, oh, maybe 2 1/2 hours of sleep that night. Fast forward to the next day, and I was relatively useless. I powered through on a 3rd and 4th wave of adrenaline, and finally around 11 had to pack it in. Allegedly, I turned to Shannon and said:

Livitluvit: “I’m so sorry but I have to go home.”

Shannon: “Are you sure? Are you okay?”

Livitluvit: “Yes… for now… but I have to be sober enough to put out tonight, and I think I’m walking the line.”

When the table finally stopped laughing at her account of the exchange, all I could muster was, “Well, it does sound like something I’d say.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday was spent chasing down the most gorgeous leather couch we’d ever seen. A hipster living next to the 930 club (OF COURSE) was selling it on Craigslist. I wish the original ad was still posted, but it ran something along the lines of, “I need to sell my sofa- I think it’s leather, but I don’t know how to find out for sure. My parents gave it to me. Best offer.”

It looked absolutely beautiful in the picture, so we hustled our very hungover buns over there (um, did I mention we’d been drinking mimosas/very strong bloody marys/drifting off into nap land all day?)

It was most DEFINITELY leather, lovely, heavy, espresso/chocolate brown leather. Probably a $2,000 couch, at least when first purchased, and it was in perfect condition. I guess hipsters whose parents buy their furniture don’t have much of a concept when it comes to the value of said items, because we somehow convinced him to sell it to us for less than $400. SCORE!

I will say that he was unbelievably nice, and totally honored the whole “first person to respond who can pick up said item within a reasonable amount of time” unspoken law of Craigslist. He even helped us carry it down to the truck, because while I have abnormally strong legs, my forearms are kinda like this… (If you haven’t seen Meet the Robinsons, I highly recommend it. You might want to drop acid first, though. Or at least smoke a bowl. But it was a very entertaining hour and a half.)

So, although a bit clueless, Hipster McNice was fantastic, despite his very, very skinny jeans, and he shall be at the Housewarming. Just look for the feathered mohawk.

Saturday night was spent celebrating the new couch, the new place, and our new neighbors, Fellow Masshole and the Chocolate Monster, at my new local Irish pub. (That I always frequented anyway. Now it’s just dangerously close…) “We can stay for one” of course turned into, “What the hell was in that shot, and we’ll just take the bottle of wine, kthxbai.” So, yes, B and I had hair of the dog…. for hair of the dog. Cause that’s how we do.

Fortunately, it was an early night. Unfortunately, the reason that was fortunate was because Sunday was spent MOVING…………

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8:09 a.m… For some ungodly reason (most likely because I passed out with pepperoni pizza on my face at 11pm) I wake up. I promptly wake B up, too (why suffer alone?) and we decide that since we have to get a truck anyway to pick up the couch, we might as well move as much of his apartment as we can as well. Hell, why don’t we make a whole day of it and go to IKEA? (This is the point in time when it would have been really great if one of us had twisted an ankle or something, thus ensuing that the day ahead could not happen. Next time, B, I’ll be sure to take a dive- it’s easy enough with 4 inch heels on.)

10:31 a.m… B and I enter the U-Haul (THIS ONE, read the reviews… they do it justice). There are 6 people in line. They look agitated. We, like two very very stupid happy little bunnies, jump in line giggling and high on coffee. Future Us from an hour later would have shot 10:30 Us on sight.

10:51 a.m… The same 6 people are still in front of us. The line has not budged. Five more have come in and warily joined the line behind us. We start making fun of the establishment/everything around us for entertainment. The people in line are mostly really cool and we are all of one mind, having fun with the horrific situation at hand and joking with each other. For now.

10:57 a.m… Still, not one person from the line has made it to the counter. B and I take bets on what time we’ll actually be helped. He says 11:30. I say 11:53. We are not joking, but still determined to keep up a positive demeanor. A girl in line sees a folding chair in the corner, and strides over, picks it up, brings it back to line, sets it down and sits in it decisively, arms folded. We marvel at her moxie and are simultaneously jealous that we did not think of this ourselves. My lower back (thank you, ten years of working on my feet in restaurants) is killing me from standing and we haven’t even started moving yet.

11:02 a.m… The guy who was at the counter when we first came in is still there, and getting into an argument with the (admittedly, inCREDibly speshul) people behind the counter. The manager, a 4’1″ Southeast DC-style black leprechaun in a wifebeater, gets in his face and makes it clear that frustration will get us nowhere. B and I resolve to sit back and enjoy the ride.

11:17 a.m… The girl behinds us returns to her boyfriend with coffee and a newspaper. Everyone in line (it’s up to about 18 at this point) descends upon her like hungry jackals. She passes out sections to all of us, and we kiss her feet.

11:30 a.m… Still trying to keep up a brave face, I joke with B about how I’m going to win our bet, but our patience is clearly waning rapidly. The line is now up to 22 people.

11:43 a.m… Some douchenozzle cuts the line by pretending he is only buying some boxes and packing tape. It gets very quiet as the 20 person+ line realizes what is happening. At this point, we have two more people in front of us, and have been waiting for over an hour. The air smells of mutiny and bloodshed.

11:51 a.m… It is now clear that douchenozzle is, in fact, renting a truck. I am foaming at the mout

h and B tries desperately to hold me back. I beg him to let me say something, and he begs me to refrain so we can get the hell out of there and not anger the Leprechaun Manager. I silently will the douchenozzle to turn around and take in the power of the snarl I am wearing. He knows he has done wrong and refuses to make eye contact with any of the patrons in line, much to my chagrin.

11:55 a.m… We are called up to the counter by Curtis, the “employee” who has made it clear he is the most speshul of the bunch. (It is taking him approximately 33 minutes per customer, whereas we saw a different employee get someone out in 19.) He apparently is sick and spend 40% of his time with us snuffling into a dust rag, 40% of it not doing anything at all, and 19% of it asking Leprechaun Manager questions about normal procedure stuff, at which point Leprechaun Manager launches into a condescending tutorial about protocol, instead of just handling whatever the issue is. Curtis spends approximately 1% of the time we are at the counter with him actually helping us with anything.

12:16 a.m… We actually have the key in hand and walk out to our Uhaul.

Bear in mind, friends, that WE STILL HAVE TO ACTUALLY MOVE.

Fuck you, Uhaul. I know we’re cheap bastards for even using you and all, but seriously…

Fuck. You.