My friend Gail invited me out to her lawyer’s 40th birthday party. Now, in her defense, she did warn me that it might be a bunch of middle aged rednecks, but I thought, hey, come on, this is Seattle, we’re pretty low on red neck lawyers….
We arrive in West Seattle (which I’ve been to twice prior to this) and as we pull up to the bar I could tell right away that my night was going to be very different than usual.
I was dressed in jeans, heals, and a satin tank top. Or maybe I should say over-dressed. The people there were wearing un-ironically intended trucker caps, free t-shirts and fake nails. Gail walked up and hugged a normal looking middle aged fellow. He immediately spotted me and said, “Gail, you didn’t have to bring me a present. Well, Present, what’s your name?” I thought better of calling myself “KiKi” my family name which is easy to remember and spell for morons, and went with my full name. He then shook my hand in what I can only describe as a sleazy manner.
The table where the birthday boy was sitting was full so Gail and I decided to belly up to the bar for a drink. The bartender gave Gail a beer and then eyed me and said, “Sweetheart, are you old enough to be in here?” I couldn’t decide if she was asking me if I was 21 or if I really intended to loiter about in a disgusting dive bar with a bunch of over-paid, over-sexed, middle-aged ass-clowns. I gave her the eyebrow and handed over my ID. She studied it for an unnecessarily lengthy amount of time before asking me what I’d like. I gave her a huge smile and said “Sprite, please.” She gave me the stink eye and I carefully observed her pouring my Sprite. (Might I add as a parenthetical side, that Washington State specifically makes easily recognizable IDs, where the under 21 ID is vertical and the over 21 ID is the traditional horizontal.) When we turned back around to face the abysmally terrible trio ruining the songs of marginally decent bands we saw that Gail’s Lawyer had cleared space for us across from him at the table. Goody.
We sat down and Gail’s Lawyer introduced us to what seemed to be every redneck cop and lawyer on this side of the mountains. “Bob, this is my good friend Gail and this is my Birthday Present.” I was feeling uncomfortable on more than one front, first off, he kept mentioning unwrapping this present; worse yet, I was feeling a little bit like the One Ring as he seemed eerily like Gollum.
Eventually, we got around to a couple further down the table. The husband looked like someone had inflated the brother-in-law from Arrested Development, Dr. Funke, with cheesecake. He had this mustache. I asked him if he was a cop. He said no. I wanted to ask him if he was Hitler. Gail wouldn’t let me. “Bu..bu..bu.. but Gail, he needs to know that mustaches are for cops and Hitler.” Next came his wife. As Gail’s Lawyer introduced her I was so startled by this woman’s appearance that I didn’t hear anything said for quite some time. This is what she looked like:
No serious, she looked like that. But Fatter. White frizzy hair. White blotchy skin. Scarey swollen lips. And to top it off… she had fey eyes and sharp, unnaturally long, overly pale French tipped acrylic nails.
I was afraid that I was staring. I looked down. I wasn’t staring… she was. She looked at Gail and me with predatory intensity. In my nervousness tradition, I shot her a double plus extra smile. She made a completely incomprehensible facial expression back at me. It was some form of showing her teeth. And those were some chompers; solitary dwellers, none touching their neighbors, inhumanly uneven and jaggedly sharp, clearly designed to rend raw flesh from bone. I didn’t know if that was a smile or not. I decided to look the other way. The fat middle aged man way, YIPES.
After being propositioned with the following:
“Hey my buddy thinks you’re hot, so let’s make it happen.”
“Make what happen?”
“How many drinks would it take?”
“I’m on the wagon.”
“Can I borrow your present when you’re done?”
“You can’t afford this present.”
“Ever been with an older man?”
“You remind me so much of my father.”
Eventually, we made our escape having no phone number or bodily fluid exchanges. Gail’s Lawyer seemed to think that I would actually go home with him. I should mention that his wife is 27. 25 is not much of an upgrade, though to be fair, she outweighed me by at least 75 pounds….
So I'm here till I die?
Until they kill you, yeah.
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