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I felt confident that I would be a better, more responsible adult in 2018, but after this past weekend it’s clear that I have set the bar too high.
To begin this story, let me preface with the fact that my “weekend” technically started on Thursday evening. My law school hosted a casual social event that consisted of tacos and free Shiner Bock, which inevitably acted as the gateway that resulted in me staying out until 2 a.m., despite having to be at work at 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning.
Friday morning rolled around, and my roommate woke me up at around 6 a.m. I had fallen asleep on the couch with a Whataburger cinnamon roll on the coffee table right next to me. She was on her way to Orange Theory, which I had actually agreed to attend with her earlier in the week. That obviously wasn’t happening. I wound up moving from the couch to my bed, still 98% unconscious, and went back to sleep until 8:30. Of course I had no time to shower, so I sprayed some dry shampoo, threw my hair into a messy ponytail, and pulled on the same pencil skirt I had worn from work yesterday to the bars the night before. Somehow I got myself to work only 15 minutes late, even after dropping and shattering a bottle of Topo Chico in the parking lot and doing my makeup in the car. I felt like absolute dog shit and barely got any work done all day long.
It is also worth noting that this Friday was a special kind of Friday. This Friday was the day the law school released our grades from last semester. It is a widely-known tradition that the night that grades are released, all of the students get inappropriately drunk. We had been waiting over a month to get these grades back, and I knew mine were going to be less than impressive. Obviously, I planned on participating in this night of debauchery despite my current weakened physical state.
The plan was to meet up with my friends directly after work, and I wound up being the first person at the restaurant. As luck would have it, I wound up sitting there by myself for 45 minutes because my piece of shit friends were “pregaming” before they came, even though we had set a time via GroupMe. By the time they showed, I was in an even worse mood than before and only one drink deep. They were borderline blacked out. It was 5:30 p.m.
After getting into a heated verbal altercation with one of my good pals who would not stop screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs in this family restaurant while we were surrounded by tables of families and their children, I went home to drink a shower beer and get cleaned up for the night. I decided to rock a Stars jersey and some over-the-knee boots and convinced my roommate to wear my Blackhawks jersey. I tend to like to wear my jerseys when I plan on getting rowdy. We looked like absolute tools, and I was primed to celebrate my tanked GPA. Nowhere to go but up, people.
We started at one of our favorite spots and wound up finishing a couple pitchers of Blue Moon. Some other law students showed up, and we moved the crew on down to the more “clubby” bar next door. All of these bars suck, but the choices on watering holes in my college town are few and far between. After I enjoy multiple shots, a few double Mules, and have the distinct pleasure of being bullied by some undergrad boys for trying to bum a cigarette, we head on over to a place my friends and I have dubbed “The Vortex.” It is arguably the most disgusting undergrad bar on campus. It’s definitely a place that you need to be a certain level of drunk to even remotely enjoy. Lucky for us, it was absolutely popping at 11 p.m. Crossing the street, we noticed a line out the door. Being liquored up and feeling confident, I looked at my roommate and said, “We’re not waiting in this line. Give me your ID.”
I pulled out my wallet, which was boasting not only a ten dollar bill, but also a five, and made a beeline for the bouncer. I shoved this hefty stack of cash in his hand and said, “We don’t want to wait in this line. Can we go in?” He took one look at my drunk eyes and the jersey on my chest and waved us in. How exhilarating to get to skip the line by bribing this underpaid bouncer at a bar that should be paying ME to patronize. In hindsight, I should have only offered five bucks, because it probably would have still worked.
From this moment on, the rest of this night was a blur. We linked up with some other law students who were not on their best behavior. One girl in particular, whom I had never met, attached herself to my roommate and I. She seemed nice enough, but the most memorable thing about her was that for some reason, she bought me probably 7 shots of various liquors over the night. I blame her for what happened next.
After scream-singing Fishing in the Dark, a failed attempt at making friends with some football players, and cutting the line to the women’s bathroom by acting like I had to puke when I really didn’t, the lights came on. “Closing Time” played over the speakers. I desperately needed to use the bathroom before we hopped in an Uber home, and upon returning to the table where my roommate and I had been sitting all night, went to grab my purse to leave. For background, this is a purse that I spent way too much money on when I got my first job directly after undergrad. One that I really couldn’t afford at the time, and certainly couldn’t afford to buy now. This same purse had been sitting on the table, against the wall, right next to me, all night. But now, it was nowhere to be found. In the skirmish of the bar closing and crowd leaving, someone had swiped it.
I tried to stay calm and optimistic, so I approached the bar to see if anyone had turned in a bag. Crazier things have happened, right? Negative. I went back to the restroom to see if I had accidentally left it there, but found nothing. It was at this point that I started to hyperventilate. A lot of important things were in that bag, namely, my wallet/credit cards/ID and car/house keys. Not to mention my favorite Chinese fortune and Chipotle gift card. Everything was gone.
The bouncers were pretty much pushing us out the door at this point, and my roommate had called an Uber. We got outside and onto the sidewalk, surrounded by every other college kid waiting for a ride. It was at this point that I decided to start crying. In my defense, I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a good drunk cry. Let it be known that this wasn’t a sweet, sad, pitiful, little cry where I maintained any fraction of my dignity. At this moment, I was the SOBBING drunk girl in a Dallas Stars jersey with my face in my hands standing outside of a bar. What I wouldn’t give to have a snapshot of that scene.
Our Uber rolled up, my roommate shoves me in, and we got home safely. We then sat down in the living room to start coming up with a game plan on how to do damage control regarding this stolen purse. I get a Coors Light from the fridge, because obviously more alcohol is exactly what I needed in this situation. My roommate ordered us a pizza because she is a saint, and also because pizza has been scientifically proven to stop drunk crying girls from crying. I went online to submit a police report, cried some more, ate some pizza, and took my sad and drunk ass to bed.
Saturday morning I woke up with puffy eyes. Not only was I physically hungover and dehydrated, but the guilt hangover had given me a bad case of the blues. My first big “L” of 2018 was pretty bad. I got more and more upset over the course of the day, thinking of all of the shitty consequences of my purse being stolen. I had no extra car key fob and had to call my mother and tell her an abridged version of the night’s events so she would mail me the extra I had back at home in Texas. I would have to change every single saved credit card information and change all of my accounts, plus I wouldn’t get a new debit card for like another week.
In an attempt to distract myself, I did some laundry, washed my face, and obsessively searched Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace to see if anyone was stupid enough to try and resell my bag the day after stealing it. I texted every friend who would listen to my sad story.
It was around 6:00 that night when I received an odd notification on Instagram. A username belonging to a girl I did not recognize commented on my photo from the night before. “I just DMed you!” At first, I was thinking that it was probably a bot account, or someone trying to get me to do a spon post for something. I accepted the message request, and upon opening it, saw a long paragraph of text.
As it turns out, this sweet angel of a human had found my purse hanging on the back of the door in the bathroom at the bar the night before. Apparently, in the three minutes it took me to realize my bag was gone from the table, tell the bartenders, and run back to the bathroom to see if I had left it there, this chick had found my bag and taken it to the bar to see if anyone had reported a missing bag. Apparently we had talked to two different bartenders, because they told her no one had reported anything. She decided to take it home with her and find the owner later.
She had worked all day and hadn’t had a moment to get in touch with me until Saturday evening. She had used my license to search for and find me on Instagram, and told me she would be able to return my things to me on Monday. Honestly, at this point, I wanted to punch myself in the face. After spending the entire day pissed off about having my things STOLEN from me from some heartless person, it turned out that I was just a drunken fool. Thinking back to the number of alcoholic beverages I had throughout the night, has lead me to believe that I was much more intoxicated than I thought. It be like that, sometimes.
My roommate had to drive me to school this morning to make my 7:35 a.m. class, and I have to sit through three classes today, completely unprepared because my backpack and necessary books are inaccessible in my locked car at home. I had to go back and tell all of my friends that my purse hadn’t really been stolen, call the police station and “cancel” my police report, and explain to my mother that I wasn’t a victim, just an idiot. This year is off to a great start..
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@taylordoestweet
@itsthestovallshow
sexychocolate
That night sounded awful. But it may be a little more of your year than you think if someone not only found your bag, but also returned it to you. The kindness of strangers can be astounding sometimes.
Maybe 2018 will be the year Guys Being Dudes comes back
This could be a possibility. Clearly, spending my time studying isn’t helping anything, anyway.
One of my profs recently told me that, “grad school is different from undergrad” and that I need to “change what success looks like”. I’m pretty sure that translates to “don’t bother studying, you’re screwed anyway”.
Success = living off the grid but not living like a homeless person and having tangible skills and hobbies that can more than get you by. Also, having a lot of money and not having to work for it is a pretty good definition of success lol
My year was going great until friends came in town Saturday and I didn’t get out of bed until 6pm Sunday. Guess it’s back to beer, Oreos, and disappointing my wife on a daily basis
If it makes you feel any better, my roommate “locked” himself out of our apartment last night after celebrating the Eagles win. I left the door unlocked for him and when he came home and tried to open it he actually locked it and then thought his key was broken. Neighbors are not very understanding at 3 AM on a Sunday night.
Getting drunk on Shiner followed by waking up still drunk clutching a HBCB from Whataburger. God that was the life…..
This made me extremely glad – maybe for the first time ever – that I didn’t go to grad school on a campus that has an undergrad population. I could not have handled going back to undergrad bars regularly as a 25+ year old
2018: the year of nice strangers?
I’ve never related this hard to any article.
Lose a lot of purses?
IT’S A SATCHEL!
He’s a fancy boy(boi?)
I lost my wallet two days ago and reacted almost similarly tbh.
Maybe 2019 will be our year. My “Sober January” resolution lasted less than a week and it’s been nothing but blackout poor decisions ever since.
Purse security is job security.