Reasons I'm An Ass: Vol. II

"I'm the party star,
I'm popular.
I've got my own car,
I'm popular.
I'll never get caught,
I'm popular.
I make football bets,
I'm a teachers pet...."

Nada Surf, "Popular", 2006.


"I feel you creepin', I can see you from my shadow.
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo?
Maybe go to my place and just kick it like Taebo,
And possibly bend you over. Look back and watch me
smack that, all on the floor,
smack that, give me some more,
smack that, 'till you get sore....."

Akon, featuring Eminem, "Smack That", 2006.


For everything I have been short-changed on in this life, friends isn't one of them. I just plain know a LOT of fucking people. It must mean I'm doing something right.

Knowing so many people also means you can't lie, because when your worlds collide that often, some will see you, others will talk and when the pieces start coming together wrong, you get caught. Worlds collide on me all the time; people claim to have met me at concerts ten years ago and partied with me at so-and-so's place and I don't remember them AT ALL. Often, I meet people on the bus, make friends in the grocery store line, or at a party.

Sure, it makes for a great, interesting life, but sometimes six-degrees-of-separation is not as cool as you think....

Part One:
The girlfriends-from-high-school set were planning a GNO for the 27th. One of the guys I work with had sent an email inviting a bunch of colleagues to see his band play out in Berea on that day, so I forward the email to the girls as a suggestion for GNO and they agreed to it.
I wasn't expecting that. I haven't been in a club on a dance floor since Thanksgiving. I'm really itching for it, and I was kind of hoping to get the girls to commit to something more "club" than "bar", and I really didn't think they'd respond so positively to going to see the band. But they did, so now I'm sort of locked into this. So I make the suggestion that we go to dinner, go check out Todd's band and THEN go hit a club, a three-in-one shot that ensures I will get what I want. And they all go for it.

In the meantime, A-1 chooses the restaurant, and damn me if it isn't a Mexican place. I don't like Mexican food, but the other three girls do, so I can't raise a stink about it; I can't expect them to not do Mexican on a GNO just because I don't like it. Suddenly I'm not looking forward to this night much, but I have no justification to really bitch about it.

So instead, I cheat. I call Grampa and tell him we're going out to dinner Saturday night. Grampa is the only other person I know who doesn't like Mexican food, so him and I will go somewhere we like and have dinner. We'll go at 5:30, so I can still meet the girls at the Mexican place on time, at 7:30. I'll just tell them I'm not hungry, or I'll just get something easy like that cheese dip with nachos; I can handle that.

It panned out well. I had dinner with Grampa, explained to him how the TV show '24' works because he doesn't watch it, had a good time. I met the girls at the restaraunt and we talked about everything from my blog to A-1's wedding etc. A2 & M were already drunk from all the margaritas they had before I got there, and A was talking REALLY LOUD about having sex with police officers. It was funny, but not....

I had inquired from the folks at work earlier this week who all was going to see T's band play and not a damn one of them said they'd be there, so when the subject came up at the dinner-I-didn't-eat-at, I told the girls we would probably be the only ones there that I knew.

We walk in the door and a bunch of my co-workers are there. Great, I have my noserings in....

So I walk around and say hello to everyone and express my genuine and pleasant surprise to see them there. A1 and I go get a beer, but A2 and M are just standing there; they're both tired from drinking too much that early, and now they're just about laid out. A2 is yawning. There is nowhere to sit or hang up your coat; the place is PACKED...I'm under the impression this is going to be a short run.

And now I'm a little pissed...at me. I'm the one who suggested throwing the club into GNO, but now I'm at the bar and my friends are here, my co-workers are here, I'm slamming beers, T's band is cool and for fuck's sake the DJ's playing "Smack That" and I'm on a dance floor and I've only been here TWENTY MINUTES! I can have my dance floor at this bar in between the band's sets!! I'm on the verge of having a spectacular time and A2 and M are just miserable. They want me to stay long enough to be polite. It's getting hot and cramped and uncomfortable, too, even for me. I just wasn't prepared for all that, or I'd have pulled us out of the restaurant a helluva lot faster.....

So I say my goodbyes and make my excuses and I blame it on the girls, the fact that there's nowhere to sit, it's getting late and I should really be getting home. The only person I tell the truth to is O; I tell him I want a club because I haven't been to one since Thanksgiving weekend, and then I grumble my way out the door.

We end up at the Blue Moose in Parma, which I whole-heartedly went along with. It was Parma, but the atmosphere was close enough to a "club"-type deal that I would be comfortable there and be able to work the bugs out a little bit on that dance floor. It wasn't an ideal spot, but it was close enough to what I wanted to be acceptable.

I get a little bit more drink on, I hit the dance floor, I get to hear "Smack That" again. And toward the end of the night, I walk up to the bar. Standing about five feet away is D, who also works at my company, and works alongside me and the people at the bar I just left every day. D tells me P, one of my colleagues of closest-proximity, was also there but had already left.

I was dumbfounded. The water-cooler conversation was already turning around in my mind:

"Yeah, Genn6 showed up to see T's band play with her entourage and they didn't last an hour, going home or some bit-"
"No, kidding, I saw Genn6 later that night dancing her ass off to "Smack That" at the Blue Moose!"

Well, fuck me...

I would not ask D to keep his mouth shut for me, that's such an awkward position to put someone in, and even if I did, there's no guarantee P didn't see me, and if he did, it's all over...he'll blab it to EVERYONE. As soon as D, possibly P opens their mouths, I'm busted.

I don't even know what I'll really be busted for, or what the perception of that bust will be. Maybe no one will think twice about it...no one but me, that is. Maybe the people at the bar I left will be a little insulted. Maybe next time I'll just go out with them and not have an entourage along so I can do whatever the hell I want. Maybe next time I'll give everyone the same damn story....

Mixing-and-matching your friends is difficult to do when they're all so damn different. You just can't please everybody, especially when you're still putting yourself first...