The monkey made me do it

Two interesting encounters

Anna had a bad Friday.

She took a ferry from her small town across the sound to the big city of Seattle for three job interviews, none of which paid off. To make herself forget, she decided to grab a beer at an Irish pub near the ferry terminal. The sight of an attractive woman alone with her alcohol did what it always does, and soon Anna was joined by a number of creeps. The standout was a thin, sullen man in a hoodie with a dark cap and coke-bottle glasses. He told Anna that he knew her before he met her, and then followed her from bar to bar and pretended not to hear her firmly tell him repeatedly that she wasn't interested in his company.

When Anna got to Marcus' Martini Heaven, she was near desperate. She saw a man at the bar who looked somewhat normal and grabbed his arm, begging him to pretend he was her brother and protect her from what was quickly becoming a stalker. He agreed, but when she went to the restroom she overheard him brag to his friends, "Just watch, I'm going to bring that bitch home."

Then Emily and I entered the bar. As rescuers, we were a pretty poor sight. We'd gone to a Moroccan restaurant earlier in the night and I'd polished off a bottle of wine while M tried to digest the vodka and chambord she'd just drank. Then we went to Brasa and had two more strong martinis apiece (with some birthday cake). By the time we staggered over to Marcus', our clothes were hanging crooked and I had a perma-lean on my 3-inch heels. As soon as we stumbled down the stairs (laughing the entire way), I headed for the bathroom and M headed for the bar. Anna met her there.

When I got back from my 10th pee of the night (I can hold my drink, but I leak like a faucet) I found them at a booth and quickly got caught up with the situation. The stalker approached us and asked if he could join our group. Anna's eyes went huge and I said a brisk "No thank you" while M added "It's a girl's night out type of thing, sorry." Then we ignored him and Anna crumpled against the wall. Then we decided Anna needed to drink more, and got another round of martinis. I decided it would be a great idea for me to confront the guy who had just called Anna a bitch, but by the time I had him somewhat cornered in the bathroom to deliver my diatribe (contenders were: "Hey, is your shoe untied?" and then kick him in the head, or "You should be honest with your assholery, you asshole, and not let women think that you're actually not such as assey asshole. Hole."), I was so tipsy that he slid by me with me able to give nothing stronger than some stink-eye and a wobbly kick in his direction. Probably for the best, as he was kind of big.

(There is a part in here where M got us all tequila shots and I drank mine only to throw it back up on the table, but I am omitting it for the sake of my damaged drinking queen pride)

(d'oh)

We decided that Anna was too cute and too drunk to be alone and therefore took her to my house so we could all sleep it off. After Anna and M both threw up (shower, and outside the car, respectively) they showered and we all crashed. Then in the morning I took her back to the ferry and tried to quickly sober up so that I could resume my life as the Responsible Activity Leader and organize everyone for our afternoon scuba dive.

(d'oh d'oh)

Encounter #2

Drunk middle-aged lady (DMAL) had a bad Saturday.

At least, I'm pretty sure she did. She staggered up to my dive buddy and I (dive buddy = Non-drunk middle-aged crazy lady, or NDMACL) and sat down hard next to us, resplendent in her stonewashed jeans and extra-long french manicure. Her hair was peroxide and wispy, and her face was orange. She started into a monologue about how she was 46, and she didn't want anyone to tell her what to do anymore, and that she saw us from a bar across the way (there is no bar anywhere nearby) and that she thinks we RULE because hell, we're doing what we want to do and damnit she wants a HORSE and *mumble mumble* and all the people at the Madison QFC are just the nicest cause when she lost her car, the professor offered her a ride at any time and she's going to call him right now.

The NDMACL started up her own simultaneous monologue about how she's 56 and how she didn't start diving until she was 40-something oh wait that was 49 so she was almost 50 but that she only did a couple dives a year for the first five years in September and October and that only recently did she start diving once a month with my group and that she really liked having people to dive with because it makes her pictures more interesting and she likes going to places she's never heard of, because she's seen Hoodsport a million times, I mean she's gone to Octopus Hole a million times and even though that's the place where my group went last and she didn't seem to recognize anything it's okay that we went there again but she wants to see something NEW and she can't believe that in the previous dive there was an octopus that almost climbed on her head and she didn't even see it.

I tried not to laugh.

There WAS an octopus that almost climbed on her head, because she was laying in a bed of kelp trying to get a picture of the starfish directly besides the octopus and she was threatening to squash it. I pulled her up and pointed to the octo, and she nodded but apparently she just nods whenever I point.

She also turned off my air before our second dive. I asked her to check my tank, since I couldn't remember if I'd turned the valve all the way, and she turned it completely off and told me it was fine. Didn't take me long to discover that it really wasn't all that fine.

But anyways, after her monologue had died down and she's asked both the NDMACL and I for business cards (we were sitting there in wetsuits, so we had to unfortunately say we weren't carrying business cards at the moment), the DMAL stood up again and stilt-walked over to the street, where there was a man waiting in a car, and they drove off together.

Into the sunset.

I have no idea what to make of that.

posted by LadyJay @ 5:03 PM