The Pod People

Bar One - The night begins at Brown Bar, home of pretentiousness. There’s a happy hour going on here, and I was thinking maybe we’d hang out with Cube Boy and his friends. But the only person I see is Fiance of Cube Boy and…well…yeah. I don’t think I’m on her list of favorite people. So El Dilector and I have a couple of cocktails and decide to take our pretentiousness on the road.

Bar Two – Next it’s Oslo. Isn’t that the capital of some faraway country or something? Inside, it’s more pretentiousness. El Dilector makes the observation that all the guys look the same. Indeed they do. They’re all…medium. Medium height, medium brown hair, medium build. What’s up with this? Is Oslo cloning people? El Dilector and I sip cocktails and wonder about the pod people.

Bar Three – El Dilector thinks that maybe we can score some free drinks at Boyz Cellar. We head over there and I paw at a poster of some guy advertising the male shower dancers on Tuesday nights. Mmmm. Too bad he’s not playing for my team. We walk in and there are two dancers on stage. Wow! It’s like a mini-LaBare! Right here in Austin! I make a mental note to tell Gigi about my discovery.

El Dilector and I sit at the bar and order Dos Equis. No free drinks here – just $4.50 bottles of Mexican beer. What the hell?! Did we step into L.A. or something? I’m so annoyed. I’m watching the La Bare dancers when I realize they are sort of a rip off. One guy has this weird white thong on and he keeps showing us his bony ass. It’s not all that hot. The other guy is built and I think he’s passable until I realize he’s a But-His-Face. Gotta do that guy with a bag on. He looks like a redneck and about as dumb as a rock. It’s later when I’m in the bathroom that I see what I think might be a transvestite. My first sighting! That’s so exciting. I come out of the bathroom to tell El Dilector.

“We’re going. Now,” he says, and of course I’ve got to gulp down my beer before he French exits on me and I never find him again.

“What happened in there?” I ask, struggling to keep up with him on the sidewalk. Shit, I think I’m wasted.

“This girl came up to me and asked me what I was looking for. I told her, ‘girls,’ and she said her friend was interested. Her friend was not a girl.”

“Ohhhh,” I say. “At least that means you’re hot, right?”

El Dilector and I agree, as we hit Room 219, yet one more hotbed of pretentiousness.

Bar Four – This bar is huge, and packed. How can there be so many people in Austin? Oh, right, they are hatching pods over at Olso. I forgot. I order another Dos Equis and wait at the bar for El Dilector. He returns from the bathroom and we go up to the second level. There’s a birthday party going on here and El Dilector swipes a bite of cake. He reports that it’s not very good, so I don’t waste the calories. We watch this black guy in a backwards cap dance with his skinny boring white girlfriend. She has no moves and he’s dancing circles around her. Move your ass, girlfriend! Come on! I’m bored just watching her. I can’t imagine dancing with her.

“I feel the need to go to Red River and ground myself,” I tell El Dilector and he agrees.

Outside, we find a pedi-cab and book it over to our favorite street. I wave at everyone as if I’m in the Rose Parade and only one person waves back. Dude, what up with that? Uh-oh. We really are in Invasion of the Body Snatchers! No one is allowed to show any emotion, and that might account for the bad dancing as well.

Bar Five – You guessed it. Jimmy’s Irish Lair is in full effect, and my rat-arsed rotto is in full effect. I find it hard to make the proper turn to get into the bathroom. Back at the bar, El Dilector and I have more full beers. Dude, all someone would have to do is follow us around the city and he or she could drink free beers all night, as I drink half and leave it behind. This one’s a pint. It’s never going all the way down, as El Dilector will be ready to hop in about 3.5 minutes.

Jimmy comes over to chat with us, and as he moves off down the bar, I know I’m tanked. I just understood everything he said. It’s an inverse relationship. The more smashed you are, the more sense Jimmy makes. Oh hell.

Yup. I’ve managed to drink just a few sips of the pint when El Dilector hops up and announces it’s time to hit Red Eyed Fly. I get up to follow him and Jimmy stops me. There is a moment of pure horror when I realize that he’s asking me out. Oh God. Oh no. Apparently since I now understand him I’ve passed some sort of test. I just smile and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow night, and run out the door.

Bar Six – I catch up with El Dilector at the door to Red Eyed Fly and explain that Jimmy just asked me out. We order Tecates this time and I lament the fact that I probably just pissed off my favorite bar owner. He’s never going to give us free drinks with a wounded ego. Because there’s no way I can go out with that dude. Damn it.

“Can you imagine that date?” I ask El Dilector. “What? Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, what did you say? What? I’d have to be super wasted.”

El Dilector is doing a time-check and we’re off again – this time to DeVille. I swig another gulp of beer and wonder mildly how I can be so damn blotto when I’m not sure if I’ve finished a drink all evening. Oh. Then I remember the shot at Brown Bar.

Bar Seven – The back bar at DeVille is closed, and it makes me want to cry. Where’s NPJ and the crew? This just doesn’t feel right. Neither does my head. It’s hard to navigate inside the darkness that is DeVille. El Dilector hands me a drink and I realize I’m standing next to this guy I used to know: Sweat Roll J. It just seems like every time I see him, he’s sweating, and there’s just this one little drip of sweat rolling down his sideburn. It’s disgusting. I peer through the gloom to see if the drip is there tonight. Dude, I am drunk as a monkey.

El Dilector tells me to go to the bathroom and ground myself. Not sure how that works, but I’ll give it a try. In the bathroom I run into a girl from college. I’m going to call her Adorableness, because she is, and because she goes on and on about how fabulous I look. You are going to be my new best friend! We exchange numbers and promise to call each other tomorrow. Anyone want to take bets on that one?

Back in the gloom, I find El Dilector and Sweat Roll J. I tell El Dilector I’m going to fix him up with Adorableness. I’m already envisioning their wedding and how we’re going to be sisters. It’s going to be great. Sweat Roll J is eavesdropping and making stupid comments. Hmmm. I remember, aside from the sweat, why I haven’t seen this guy in years. He’s annoying! Things are getting fuzzy but I tell him as much and he says I’m a bitch. Whatever. Then he mentions someone else being annoyed by the fact that he always picks girls up and cracks their back.

“I remember that!” I scream. “It’s annoying. And it’s so over. It’s so totally 1999.”

I have to walk away at that point, mostly to figure out if I can still walk. Outside, El Dilector joins me. Monkey de Sade and his girlfriend show up, and I know that they are not nearly as annihilated as El Dilector and me. They seem to be able to function normally. And El Dilector keeps hugging the girlfriend and going on and on about how WONDERFUL it is to see her. Then he says that it’s “sweet” that they moved in together.

Yeah. It’s time to go home. Back at the Bachelor Pad of Injustice, I throw a mini-pizza in the microwave for El Dilector, but he says something about going to bed and disappears. I finish off the veggie buffalo wings with some green ketchup I find in the refrigerator. El Dilector’s roommate Supa Fly comes in as I’m passing out on the couch.

“I just have one question,” he says. “What the hell is the green shit in the sink?”

I’m too blitzed to explain it to him. I’m too blitzed to follow the episode of The Sopranos I’m trying to watch. I have no idea what else I say to Supa Fly as I finally pass out.

-Shakira 04.02.04