Friday night we danced. We danced like nobody was watching - we danced like everyone was watching. Do I want another $9 mango martini? Fuck yes I want another $9 mango martini! Just keep bringing me more alcohol, I need to dance. Dance dance dance drink drink drink sober ride to the hotel blur of drunken talking pass out.
Cut to Saturday morning. I was in the unconscious space between dreams and awake, likely drooling on my hard-as-a-rock hotel pillow, when I was jolted into reality by an awfully loud sound. I kept my eyes shut, trying to recognize the sound. My first thought was that there must have been a bird perched on the edge of the mattress because the sound was basically at my feet. I turned over, trying to hit the bird with my feet, but when no contact was made I realized that my instinct was wrong.
But I was sure the bird was close. I rolled over again to face the window and cracked one eye open. Sure enough, there was the fucking bird, perched on the window, screaming its stupid fucking bird head off. In the brief moments of silence between the horrible horrible sounds it was making, I heard its friends hollering back from quite a distance away.
"GO TO THEM!" I wanted to yell. "STOP YELLING AND GO TALK TO THEM AT A REASONABLE DISTANCE LIKE NORMAL FUCKING PEOPLE DO!!"
But the screaming continued. I pulled the rock hard pillow over my face, trying to smother myself to death so I would never hear that awful sound again, but alas, my life continued, and so did that horrible bird.
---
Saturday night we celebrated late into the night. More dancing, more drinking, more laughing, singing, and merry making. Late night fast food and then we hit those godawful beds, ready for a good night's sleep.
Of course, this wasn't meant to be. I was shocked into an incredibly groggy consciousness by a sound that I couldn't quite recognize. Music? Yeah, that's music. A guitar. And... a harmonica? Yes, definitely a harmonica. And hippies. Hippies singing
at the top of their fucking lungs. I peeled my eyelids apart and glanced towards the window, shocked to see that it was pitch dark outside. As I rolled towards my phone to check what time it was, I vaguely remembered passing out around 2am. This couldn't have been a decent hour for this kind of hippie jackassery. Sure enough -- it was 4:30am.
I remembered earlier in the day hearing the hippies sitting on their patio directly beneath my window, shirts off, being gross and talking shit. Those douchebags were interrupting my sleep, and they were messing with the wrong probably-still-drunk girl. I laid in the darkness, staring at the ceiling trying to decide my next move. Jackie was miraculously still sleeping through all of their fucking harmonica b.s., and if that wasn't waking her, I didn't want a sudden profanity-laced outburst to be her first moments of 4:30am consciousness. (I try to be a considerate bedmate.)
I did the next best thing in my inebriated and dazed state of half-consciousness/full-on-rage - I would show them the universal sign of annoyance by slamming the window shut. The hippies would realize that they had woken me up, and they would scurry back into their stupid little house and change their ways. They would put down their instruments, shave and shower, do a load of laundry, and sleep like decent people do at 4:30 in the fucking morning.
Of course, the windows were only able to be closed by turning a ridiculously outdated crank, so I cranked that fucker shut as angrily as I could. That would show them. The window creaked closed at an embarrassingly slow pace, but I cranked it as fiercely as I could. FEEL MY ANGER, WINDOW! TELL THOSE HIPPIES HOW ANGRY I AM WITH EVERY SQUEAK!
Twenty minutes later, nothing had changed, except for a) the addition of a fucking banjo, b) it was about fifteen degrees hotter in the hotel room, and c) I WAS MAD AS HELL. I somehow managed to drift into an uncomfortable and bitter sleep, a murderous rage filling my dreams.
The next morning, the four other girls in the hotel room asked me how I dealt with the seven-piece Phish cover band outside my window. When I told them that I had angrily cranked the window shut, I was first laughed at and then bombarded with shock that I didn't threaten or insult them at the top of my lungs. Be thankful, Jackie Richmond, that I am a courteous bedfellow, otherwise you would have been woken up by what would have most likely been a most ridiculous shouting match two floors up through a dusty screen between a handful of drunk hippies and an incredibly enraged half-asleep probably still drunk girl.
The lesson in all of this?
Don't wake me up. Ever.
