It was quite the stressful night…
This is a story to go along with the Stress Test Challenge.
It’s Friday night and you’re meeting friends at the club! It’s not too far away and you’re buzzing with excitement, so you decide to walk. A few blocks later and damn, it’s freaking cold tonight. Realizing you’re way underdressed, you call an Uber hoping to get there sooner and avoid hypothermia. While you shiver and check the progress… you realize your car has been 2 minutes away for nearly 10 minutes!
Thank god, the silver sedan finally approaches. You sprint to the curb, right into the splash of the giant puddle your driver has carelessly pulled into. Realizing his mistake, the driver destroys your faith in humanity by barely acknowledging your existence and speeding off. So much for Uber, hypothermia it is.
You sprint towards the club, and as you get closer, what do you see? A mass of people stretching around the corner of the boulevard. You dart into the street past the riff raff, planning to smooth-talk your way in at the door, but ten minutes later the bouncers haven’t even looked at you.
“Am I freaking invisible?” you scream at them. Apparently you’re mute too.
Defeated, soggy and freezing, you make your way to the back of the long ass line. Your friends manage to find you, and you cut them in. They give you a desperately needed group hug for warmth. Not tonight, frostbite, not tonight.
Feeling somewhat better, you turn towards the club to see how much further to the door. Unfortunately, it was just in time for the dude in front of you to blow a gust of smoke right towards your face. You instinctively step backwards to avoid it, right onto something sticky…
Your brand new Nikes are now one with a popsicle stick clinging to a hunk of colorful half-melted goo. All evidence says it belonged to the bachelorette party of drunk girls behind you that are currently screaming out-of-tune Beyonce lyrics. When they stop, your friend asks them if they know they are in line for a techno club. The bride screeches something that suspiciously sounds like thank god for molly, at which the group cackles loudly and goes back to munching on dick popsicles. Your little group can do little more in response than stand there doing your best impressions of the white guy blinking meme.
An eternity later, the doors are in sight! You greet the bouncer with a joke about second times being a charm, but they don’t think it’s funny. No matter, the night is still young and there are good times to come.
Once inside the vibe is lit and the sound system is thumping. Soon you can’t help but give into the relentless bass of the kick drum and dance your troubles away. Tightly cocooned in a mass of black t-shirts, you can’t see the stage, but the rhythm has you swaying. Eyes closed, you give yourself in to a building crescendo of dissonant chords when yet another thing that should never happen at a techno club rudely interrupts your reverie: the DJ yells “Put Your Fucking Hands Up!”
In his zeal to comply, the dude next to you appears to forget he’s holding a full glass of beer and pours most of it right over your head. The crisp cold suds cascade down your spine, the back of your legs, right into your sneakers.
Disgusted, you immediately push your way through the crowd to the restrooms to clean up. Thankfully, the bathroom attendant helps you out with some paper towels. Grumbling but dryer than before, you figure you better use the throne before heading back into the wilderness. As you finish your duties as quickly as possible, you realize that the stall is out of toilet paper. Unfortunately, they didn’t teach you this kind of creativity in art school.
As you sigh and are about to ask the attendant for help, a hand attached to a purple sleeve passes a roll under the stall. You finish your business and turn to thank your savior, but it’s just you and the attendant.
Out of the restrooms and praying for an end to the humiliations of the night, you head back into the mob. It’s barely peak time, but the floor is already a sticky mess. (And did you seriously just step on another dick popsicle!?) Most everyone is in trance mode, oblivious to the world and having a ball. You exhale and smile, and start looking for your people.
Except they’re not where you left them. No, not tonight. There’s no way you’ve lost your friends! They’re probably getting a drink or in the bathroom, right?
No cell signal. You anxiously circle the venue three times. You even try asking the grumpy bouncer and the gaggle of drunk bridesmaids. They haven’t seen your friends but they give you a dick popsicle that leaves your tongue and fingers hot pink.
Fed up and now on a sugar high, you step outside the club to continue the search. The frigid air slams into your lungs and tinnitus torments your eardrums. You text your friends one more time, and while doing so bump into your beer baptist, who is outside having a smoke, except this time it isn’t tobacco.
Dude recognizes you and apologizes for spilling his beer on you. You accept his apologies and peace offering, figuring it’ll take the edge off. Faith in humanity restored. But the second his joint touches your lips, his face turns blue and red. You turn and squint as the police lights flood the scene. Your heart skips a beat as the cops rush towards you. Out of nowhere, a guy wearing pink sunglasses (is that a third lens?) guides you aside as the cops rush past you into the club. Wailing sirens are icing on the proverbial bachelorette party cake, so you decide it’s time to go home.
You reach back into your pocket and pull out a dead phone. Of course. The first wintery wander didn’t kill you, so you figure the second time will be okay too. You thank your new friend for the puff and start jogging back home.
Twenty minutes later, you plug in your phone and collapse on your couch, trying to peel off your damp clothes as quickly as possible. It isn’t too long before your phone starts buzzing. Your friends want to know where you’ve been. You really want to know the same of them! Turns out they’ve been hanging out with the Promoter and some Guru guy backstage all night. Since the party was shut down they want to come over to your place to keep the good times going.
The night can only get better… right?
“Okay, no stress. Come over.”
