no-fi "magazine" presents
St. Patrick's Blackout
By Sabrina Cognata, 2006
Maybe where you're from Saint Patrick's Day is a big deal. Maybe it isn't. I can't be the judge of such things because my powers of omnipotence have been revoked. At any rate, where I'm from and who I am make Saint Patrick's Day a very big, huge deal-like boom my head exploded and gold nuggets are spraying all over the place from my neck. Like that sort of deal, you know?
For starters, I'm 24-years-old. I live in Los Angeles. I'm a writer, and above everything else, I like to drink. I am sure a lot of you reading this scoff and think, “Well, I like to drink too,” but you're wrong. You can't possibly take it to the Sports Chalet of limits like I do. I really trudge through the shit in order to drink as much, and as hard as humanly possible. My pride is at stake and I am more than willing to put my self respect on the line in order to prove this. Saint Patty's Day is the veritable Mecca for me and my friends and because of this we decided to celebrate it in the City of Sin, Las Vegas.
The plan was simple. Saint Patrick's Day landed on a Friday. We'd drive to Sin City Thursday night and start drinking at exactly midnight. That way we'd prove our drinking quality and fervor. The lot of us we set out Thursday night in the pursuit of all things seedy and salacious. Four and a half hours later we found it. We drove up to the Flamingo Hilton needing a drink and a smoke. It was apparent to all around us how bad we had sunk into dryness on the excursion from Los Angeles. We pulled up to the valet and were greeted with seeming smiles and more glares.
“Are you here for the final four this weekend?” The valet asked us.
“If the final four isn't myself and my friends being the last people standing at the end of this weekend - then no,” I said as I looked him square in the eyes.
The tone was set early and I could tell the valet knew what we were about to embark upon. As he unloaded what seemed to be an unending amount of luggage from my car, I looked at him and said, “It's going to be a good weekend. My vagina is sweating already. And yes, I mean in that Bartholin gland sort of way.”
His face beamed with sheer shock and it set the table for exactly what would happen from that point on, chaos, and an unaccountable amount of it. From then on it was game on. It was a challenge to each of our womanhoods to see who could hold the most alcohol. I had money riding that it was me. I had my pride. I had my indelible thirst for trouble and alcohol. I purchased a one way ticket to the drunk-tank and I couldn't hide my excitement. We raced to our room and began getting ready for the night's festivities. From the second we opened the door we were drinking.
I shouted to no one in particular, “I better slow down before it looks like Michael J. Fox put my eye makeup on.” My friend's squealed as I struggled to keep my hand steady while applying eyeliner. Upon completion of my Matissed face, I began taking obtuse pictures with my clearly unsteady hand. I was ready for my close up and I was ready right now.
It turned out, as we realized, even Vegas is dead sometimes. We ended up at a lounge in Caesar's Palace. At one table was a clan of frat boys-remember them, they will come into play at a later time. At another table, there was a family from the mid-west, I was pretty sure we'd run them off almost immediately. At the bar was a man in his forties. He sat alone with a bottle of water and a Corona. After it became clear to us that service came quicker sitting at a table rather than flashing our tits around at the bar-we took a table and began to spiral out of control.
The lounge was incredibly busy. It took so long for the drinks to come to our table that I was nearly sober. While I was flipping out over the time lapse the singular gentleman from the bar approached the group of us and asked us if he could sit with us, now I'm not sure if it was the total lack of alcohol or the fact that I'd gone insane, but I agreed to allowing him to grace us with his presence. The second he sat in the empty chair at our table he began to annoy the hell out of me.
I decided it would be in this man's best interest to understand that we were not fucking around. Our entire plan was to get as plastered as possible, which is, if you know me, nothing out of the ordinary. So I politely said, “In the second the drinking will commence, and things are going to get out of--”
Before could finish my diatribe the old bastard cut me off, “Listen, if I find I don't like what's going on here then,” he paused, “then I'll get up and go back to my suite.”
His suite. If you didn't catch that he stressed his suite, which of course meant I was suppose to be impressed because you know, a suite is so hard to come by. And after he said this I looked him square in the face, rolled my eyes and said, “I need a fucking drink,” kicked my leg up into the air and cackled madly.
I'd like to be able to tell you how much I drank while sitting at that table, but I can't. I'd also like to tell you that Little Lord Fauntleroy got up once he saw that I planned to out drink all of the people in my vicinity. But he didn't.
After roughly five drinks and eight shots, I turn to Christen and stammered, “I'm gonna drink until the sun turns into,” I paused dramatically deep in thought about what the sun could turn into, “until it turns into milk.”
Upon this announcement Christen and I high fived and we joined forces for yet another toast. To the Irish. To Saint Patrick. Maybe it was to our mothers, or Chuck Norris, or Wombats. I couldn't tell you for sure. After a while my friends got up to go to the bathroom and I was left with Mr. Cranky. I decided I couldn't engage in conversation with him without stabbing him in the face so I turned around to the table of frat boys and began engaging them in wild conversation about sex with animals or donkey punching.
Mr. Cranky did not take my blatant ignoring of him well at all. He got up and excused himself to the bathroom very loudly. I never turned back to acknowledge him, I just waved while continuing my conversation with the boys. Once I was sure he was gone I told them, “Why don't you guys come and sit at our table. He is obviously gone so please join us. It would be our pleasure.”
Shortly thereafter my friends returned. They were ecstatic to find that I had gotten rid of Mr. Cranky. We ordered more drinks and toasted to more stuff, high fiving the frat boys and sharing in the general joy of a drunken moment. Eventually, our merry mood was met with an ominous crash of thunder as Mr. Cranky returned and exclaimed, “This man is in my seat!”
“Dear, of course he is in your seat,” I told him. “You left.”
“I didn't leave. I went to the bathroom.”
“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” I said as my friends laughed. I patted my lap, “Come sit on my lap and give the man back his chair.”
The frat boy got up and walked over to me, taking a place on my lap. I ran my hands all over his body, manhandling him like a piece of property.
“Boy, he's strong! Cut out of a block of wood!” I exclaimed to my friends.
“Oh yea,” said Mr. Cranky in his executive voice. “I bet he doesn't even have a double showerhead in his suite. I bet he doesn't even have a suite.”
We all paused for a second to watch this man throw a fit over the fact that no one really cared he was there. The fact that we never cared he was there, and we hoped he'd leave at any given second. Before I had a chance to open my mouth one of my friend's turn to him and said, “Oh it doesn't matter if he has or not cause he's sleeping in our room tonight.”
Well, with that Mr. Cranky had just about enough from our entire group. How dare we insult him or his suite with its perfect double showerhead? May we be so lucky as to ever use something as glorious and status holding as his double showerhead. He cursed us silently in his head as he angrily picked up his beer and stomped off.
Most of the memories from that point on became a blur of faces and drinks. Eventually, security found me in the kitchen of one of the hotel restaurants searching for the bathroom. I was escorted back to my hotel room where I too cursed silently as I eventually passed out.
Sabrina is a staffmember of No-Fi "Magazine" and knows how to mix her drinks...A LOT.
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