Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

A night to remember…

Author: thenicknick

It was January 24th, 2009.  I won’t soon forget that night.  It was the last night that I went out with a group of friends and partied in uptown Charlotte.  That’s right…Epicentre.  The heart of it all.

Epicentre is composed of a group of bars and restaurants, a theatre, hotels, everything one might want and/or need for a good night on the town.  The offering is as diverse as the people who patronize the place.  And I hadn’t been.  As you may have gathered…single mom here.  I don’t get out and party much.  I mean, partially because it’s not really my scene, and because in order for it to be my scene I have to spend money.  So, I have discovered I can find my scene elsewhere.

Well, the thoroughbreds (Donna and Tina) decided that we should go out.  (This is about the time that Michael started calling them the thoroughbreds and announced that I was built for comfort…)  So, we gathered a group of friends together, all people who worked in that area, rented a van, pronounced one man the DD and met up at a South Charlotte restaurant to put some food on our bellies before any drinking began.

Yes, I ordered food and Donna ordered us a round of shots.  And it had to be Goldschlager.  Freakin’ ’schlager.  Deceptively innocent tasting fiend.  So, I ate, and drank, and we loaded the van.  I was already feeling warm, which was good since it was COLD outside.  (North Carolina cold is like an Adirondack fall day, mostly.)

There were seven of us, to start with.  We picked up more friends at Whiskey River, our first stop.  Well, the minute we entered the bar, Donna and Tina were off to the dance floor and they treated SP, who was quite smitten with them, like a coat rack. Donna talked to him for a few minutes, only to skillfully deposit her coat and purse in his arms and leave him gawking after her as she sashayed away.  And I laughed.

Well, the music was great.  There was dancing and more shots.  I even danced with a strange man who gave me a hug at the end of it.  It was, I’ll admit, something like the kind of hug you’d give to a cute kid sister, but I took it.  (He was hot!)  And there were more shots.

Soon, we went to the next bar: Mez.  And for me it was something akin to that skit on Saturday Night Live that they turned into a movie with Will Ferrell…A Night at the Roxbury.  We were all walking toward the bar because apparently we hadn’t consumed enough alcohol for one evening.  I’m…short…and doing my best to keep up with all the tall people I’m with.  All of a sudden, a group of really gorgeous, tall, buff guys surrounds me.  And it wasn’t cool.  They might have just been playing, and in some situations, a different venue, I might have played along, but not there, not that night.

Rather than panic, I raised one arm into the air as high as I could while staring at the guy directly in front of me.  From outside the circle, Rory reached in and grabbed my hand, pulled me out to him, and helped me over to the bar.  After that, I decided I needed a drink, forget about a shot.  I needed something that I could sip…while settling my nerves.  I think it was an amaretto sour.  Ah.  And I ate the cherry first.

We didn’t stay there long.  Donna hated the music.  I wasn’t fond of the crowd.  And so it was back into the cold to find our next stop.  The night was young!  (And so were…well, I’m kinda young…)

We stopped at The Forum, after picking Tina up off the ground.  No, she wasn’t drunk.  She was clumsy.  Her heel managed to get caught in her jeans and she went down.  One minute she was there, next, gone!  Rory to the rescue…again.  (He was really there for us that night.)  And I have to tell you, I rather enjoyed The Forum.  Okay, having a strange man buy me drinks didn’t hurt.  It had never really happened to me before, so it was all new and exciting.  And I was feeling sexy and dangerous.  (It was the black lace push up bra.  Yeah, and those of you who know me are thinking I need a push up bra like I need a hole in the head… Well, it was the only bra that didn’t show under the cute shirt I was wearing.  So there.)

And by now, I’d had just enough alcohol to loosen up and have fun.  Too soon, I was dancing with questionable men…who bought me drinks…until Donna put the kibosh on that.  Spoil sport!  At least I still had Mehul to have fun with.  And he’s safe…a married man who really truly only wants to be my friend.  Perfect.

We gathered everyone up and headed to the van just before two.  And SP went off with another one of the guys.  They had decided to have breakfast at Uptown Cabaret.  (Because…according to them…nothing goes better with eggs than boobs.)  And the rest of us headed back to get our vehicles.  They drove me home because…I was smart enough not to drive.

Ed brought me to my car later that day, after I had showered and changed.  He asked about my night.  And it was a fun night.  I don’t usually go out, so it was a nice change for me.  It’s not something I’d like to do every weekend or even every month.  Instead…I’d make it an annual event, not unlike the running of the bulls.  So often, it has freakishly similar outcomes.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 at 12:05 am and is filed under Blog Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.