“Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!”
Shots – LMFAO
Think back to yesterday. You probably don’t want to, because it was Monday, but something important happened yesterday. I wrote a blog post that is extremely relevant to your continued reading of this one. It chronicled my first day in Jacksonville for the Law Prom. I’ll now pause so you can go back and read it.
Saturday morning started with a headache. Much like a lot of my mornings these days, but that’s just so I have something to do at work. Believe me, getting rid of a hangover headache is indeed work. That’s not particularly germane to this situation, however. I rustled my happy ass out of bed and hopped in the shower. Then Jenna and I set out on a quest to find some chow to satiate the rumbly in my tummy.
One of her friends was out of town for the weekend and had asked Jenna to watch her dog. In return for this service, she prepared us some baked ziti. Mmm nom nom. Her friend evidently has a fairly generous cash flow, because in addition to her exquisitely furnished apartment, she had the coolest coffee maker I’ve ever seen. It’s called a Keurig Home Brewing System. It takes these little cartridges that you put in the top and hit go. A minute later you’ve got a piping hot cup of gourmet coffee. It’s a bit pricey at about $2 a cup, but as I sit here drinking coffee out of a styrofoam cup that tastes like asphalt scrapings from a motorcycle wreck, it seems like a shrewd investment.
After gnawing on some ziti, drinking a cup of that delectable coffee, and watching the tail end of Zoolander, I was about 85% back in the game. Situations like this call for a little hair of the dog that bit ya; a liquor drink. Fortunately, one of Jenna’s friends from the previous evening wanted to go to the bar for a bite to eat and a pina colada, so that worked out swimmingly. One Dirty Caucasian later, I was back in it 100%. Time to go Charity Balls deep.
We returned to Jenna’s apartment to get dressed up in our monkey suits and dresses, respectively. I would like to take a moment to brag about myself. I’ve got a really nice suit that I bought a year or two back and I purchased a couple of really nice shirts with it too. One of them I wear almost every time I don the suit, so I felt it was time to purchase a new dress shirt for this occasion. I called Jenna up and asked what color dress she was wearing. “Blue.” She replied. “Not sky blue, not navy blue, but regular American blue.”
“Terrific.” I said. “I can wear the shit out of some blue.” I headed off to the department store to find a suitable shirt. After a brief argument with the Men’s Dress Clothes attendant, I was finally able to explain that any shade of pastel anything would not work. I found a shirt in my size that I thought would suffice and purchased it for half off. Upon arrival in Jacksonville, I compared it to Jenna’s dress and it was the exact same color. The mountains win again!
In retrospect, a blue tie with a black shirt might have been a better mix of badass and eye-popping, but I have a severe penchant for over-the-top, and believe me, we were way over-the-top of blue. We’d crested the peak and were barreling, hell bent for leather, down the other side of blue. I thought we looked smashing.
The law prom itself was held at TPC Sawgrass (Tiger Woods’ home golf course and site of his recent infidelity speech). This is about a 20-25 minute drive from the area of Jax we were in. We’d decided not to get a hotel room at the course for the evening so our plan was to drive Jenna’s car out there and cab it back when we were drunk and pliable that evening. We’d combined forces with another couple to lower the cost of the cab fare back, which led to some hilarity later in the night.
We were one of the first to arrive, so we stood in the lobby and enjoyed our one free drink for the evening. This was possibly my only real complaint about the evening. The drinks were ridiculously expensive. $8 for a liquor drink, $5 for a 12 oz. beer. Those are Braves game prices. Jenna had had an epiphany earlier in the day that we should swing by the liquor store and pick up some of those one-hitter liquor bottles. Best idea since the spork. We figured we’d buy one or two drinks at market prices then switch to soda and add in our own libations. The only downside was I had to spend most of the ceremony with half a dozen miniature liquor bottles bouncing around in my jacket pockets.
There were some announcements which were of absolutely no concern to me, since I don’t attend the school, but I sat there while superlatives were awarded for “Most likely to follow ambulances” and “Most likely to have an ad for their firm on the back of a phone book.” You know, law dog type stuff. Jenna herself was up for “Most likely to be a Florida Coastal professor.” I don’t think she thought a whole lot of it, but it seemed like a pretty big honor to me. She didn’t win, but I think this is one of those things where being nominated is better than actually winning. Being nominated shows dedication to your cause, but winning just means you’re an uber nerd. Uber nerdom usually just results in a perpetual Michigan tan.
When the announcements finally ended, it was time to get down to the business of partying. We quickly downed our drinks and headed up to one of the hotel rooms to do some shots. I made a quick stop by the restroom and as I ponyed up to the urinal, I quickly realized what kind of evening this was going to devolve into. There was one guy standing a couple urinals down from me and as I was taking care of my business, another guy walks in and says to the guy peeing, “So what are you gonna do man?” Peeing guy responds, “I don’t know man. She’s trashed and she’s already yelled at me once.” Guy one says, ” Well here’s what we’re gonna do…” I chuckled to myself and they heard me as I turned to wash my hands. Guy one says, “See? That bitch already has guys in the bathroom laughing at her.” I told him not to sweat it and that I’d been there before as I washed my hands and headed for the door.
Outside the bathroom door, there was one incredibly drunk young lady, who may or may not have been crying. “It could be worse,” I thought. “It could be my problem.” Just then, Jenna came skipping around the corner with a lovely grin on her face and I counted myself among the extremely fortunate for being in the company of such a delightful girl for the evening. We wandered off upstairs to take shots with the movers and shakers of Florida Coastal. Tra la la la f’n la!
The evening sort of took a turn for the fuzzy around here. After a few drinks and some hilarious photos which I’m unable to show you because people are trying to find gainful employment, we went dancing. Going into the evening, I expected there to be bit more of this, but some days you’ve got it, and some days you don’t. For some reason, I just wasn’t really feeling the dancing thing. My vibe was off. Maybe it was the 11 year old daughter of some faculty member who thought it would be a terrific idea to bring her youngan to a ball full of drunk college kids (law school or no, they’re still college kids, and they still drink like I remember). It might have been the monkey suit. I don’t know.
One of the guys in our group, I believe his name was Brandon, was dancing up a storm and it was hilarious. He was quite eccentrically dressed and really looked more like the lead singer of the B-52s than a law student, but who am I to judge? I wear t-shirts with pictures of myself on them. The point is, if I ever need an aviary defense lawyer, I’m keeping this guy’s phone number on speed dial.
We partied in some other folks’ room and possibly got propositioned for a swingers party (I’m still processing the information on that one), but like all good things, the evening had to come to an end, but not before a bit more action…
We went to the front desk of the hotel and requested a cab back to civilization. The concierge said it would be a short wait and that one of us should wait outside for it to come so no one else grabbed ours. I volunteered, since I figured it was a job I could handle. I was wrong.
As I waited outside, a van taxi pulled up. This was ours, since we had a group of five. Two other guys who were waiting hopped in it, so I went up to the driver and said “This is our taxi, it’s cool if these guys ride with us, but do you mind waiting a minute for my friends to get out here?”
He responded, “I’ll wait for a couple of minutes, but hurry it up. Where are y’all going?”
“Umm,” I said. “Back into town, I don’t really no where. I’m just visiting.”
“Well, you got two minutes.” He replied.
I stepped away and called Jenna and told her to rally the troops because our driver was an impatient SOB. A minute or so later, they turned up. One of the guys had to grab something out of his car that was in valet, so Julie told the driver it would be another minute.
“No.” He said.
“What do you mean no?” she fired back. “You’re gonna miss out on $50 with of fare if you leave. Just wait 30 seconds.”
The guy was a dick so I just told her to let it go and we’d get the next one. I didn’t really want to ride with that old bastard anyways.
She told the guy to beat it and one of the guys in the back of the taxi said something to the extent of, ”Blah blah blah elitist bitch.”
My ears immediately perked up at this, and Julie went to town on that doucher. She’s all of about five feet tall and just a little ball of fire. It was awesome. She cursed him up one side and down the other and I’m pretty sure I heard the words “fucker” and “mother” used copiously. I was about tapped out for the evening, but that little exchange gave me a nice memory to lay my head on that evening. Me thinks those guys got more than they bargained for.
We waited for the next taxi cab for no more than a couple of minutes and that driver was more than happy to make a quick $50 off of us. All in all, a delightful evening. Perhaps not the craziest I’ve ever had, but I’ve got a few nights that are almost impossible to top and I’m not even sure that I’d try to top them if given the chance. That being said, I think my first law prom was a resounding success. Maybe they have Charity Balls in PhD school and I can parlay these dashing good looks into an invite to Doctor Prom from the one Ms. Jenna.
