"We don't have fat free milk, but we have skim if that's OK?"

Hannah is getting mad because it's "late" and she needs to get home.
"OK," I say, leaning against my car, no doubt getting dirt all over me, "Just let me take one more picture."
I can tell she's mad, but she loves being the center of attention so she gives in, "One more picture."
"One more," I echo as a BMW holding two men pulls into the empty parking spot next to my car. It is so smooth and shiny and black compared to my dust caked Dodge. I want to run my hand over it just to smudge it. Its perfection was killing me.
"Hey girls," a man, around thirty who watches too much HBO nods to the group. It is obviously one or both of the men in the car is drunk. "What are you girls up to?" He takes a puff of his cigar. I almost laugh at his New York accent, which is so thick and distinct that it sounds fake.

Hannah instantly begins having a small panic attack quietly next to me.

Like a good friend, I ignore her.

"Just hanging out," I answer, and eye them suspiciously. The driver winks at me and I shudder. They are the sleaziest looking dirt-bags on the face of the planet.

"That's cool, that's cool. My friend and I here are just looking for some people to hang out with," he nods to the camera hanging around my neck. My new DSLR Nikon D40. My relatively expensive new camera. The “perfect starter DSLR” says Wired. And I listened to Wired because Jenna Fisher was on the cover. "You takin' pictures? Here, let me take a picture of you girls together." He puts his cigar back in his mouth and reaches out his hand, but I instinctively begin to clutch my camera, like a mother protecting her baby. And ain’t no one gon’ hurt my chi-yil'.

"No, that's OK," I say.
"What?" he asks, adjusting the collar on his white polo shirt so that it was popped, just like that perpetually drunk college student going to State who wishes they were at Stanford and every creepy man going through a mid-life crisis. "You think I'm gonna steal your camera?"

Yes.

He doesn't wait for an answer, "Well, fo-get you! Fo-get yo camera! We're going!" He throws his arms in the air and motions to the driver, "Let's bounce!"

Let's bounce? Doesn't he know it's only cool to say that ironically? I give him a peace sign as he backs out of the space.
"Peace!" he shouts out the window.
"Later, dude," I reply.

Hannah is white as a ghost, "We. Almost. Just. Died."
I roll my eyes and snap a photo. It’s bad and I reposition myself to get a better angle. "No,” I say, “But we almost just had my camera stolen."

Quote of the day:

Prof: "OK, so, when someone has OCD, they might constantly wash their hands. How often do you wash your hands a day?"
Me: "Like, a million."
Prof: "Right, when you have OCD, you will wash your hands about a million times a day, but a person without OCD only washes when they need to, you know?"
Me: "Oh. I. Oh."
- Me, answering honestly to a question in Psych class only to learn I apparently have OCD.

"You know where I'm going with this?"

“So, whose birthday is it today?” a boy who didn’t look unlike Brandon Davis asks the table but looks directly at my gorgeous friend Michelle beside me. She and Katie giggle and point to me. My two friends told me that I was beginning to prematurely age into a forty-year-old woman, so they took me out to celebrate my birthday about three weeks early at a small Chinese bistro. Davis looks disappointed but keeps up the charade. “And how old are you?” He is still looking at Michelle.
Katie answers for me, “She’s twenty-one! We are all twenty-one!” she lies.
I shoot her a glance and she gives a small shrug that goes unnoticed since the kid, barely twenty-one himself, hasn’t even realized we are sitting at the same table as Michelle.
“I think then that a round of drinks is in order? Let me buy you all a drink.” Greasy Bear turns his direction towards me then back to my friend, “What do you want?”
I turn to Katie. I don’t drink. The only thing I can think of is wine since I spent all of last summer categorizing it for a private collector. I wonder how weird I’ll look ordering a 2005 Bordeaux -a “very good year” according to sources- with a Merlot base that pairs well with Asian cuisine because the richness of the wine balances the bold Asian flavor that I won’t even drink since I hate liquor. “Uh…”
Katie pipes up, “I think a round of Long Island Iced teas.”
I whisper in her ear, “Katie, there isn’t any tea in a Long Island iced tea.”
She whispers back through clenched teeth, “I. Know.”
Greasy Troll scampered off to the bar for us as one of his friends, who apparently styled himself after Drama from Entourage, sat down.
“I’m Steve,” he says as he takes a swig of Bud Light. “Who’s having the birthday?” he taps the Superman birthday balloon tied to the open chair next to him.
“Me,” I say and he winks at me.
“Awesome.”
Grease Ball comes back and pulls up a chair, “Uh, girls, we have a small problem here. You are not twenty-one. You are twenty. Frank, the bartender, told me.”
Katie rolls her eyes. It was her fault. She told the whole restaurant she was here to celebrate my twentieth birthday.
“But,” he leans in close to Michelle, “I can still get you the drinks if you want.”
“Do it!” Katie spurts out and he makes his way back to the bar.
I wasn’t sure if she said it because she wanted the liquor or because she wanted the guy to leave our table. I decide not to tell her that she should always get her own drink just in case the guy slips a roofie into the glass, but I figure she doesn’t need me to turn tonight into a ‘very special episode’ of anything.
“So, what do you do?” Katie asks Steve. This is a girl’s way of asking, So, exactly how much money do you make?
“I’m in real estate,” Steve says. “So’s Matt,” he points to the slick boy at the bar finagling drinks for us. “We deal up north a lot? Like, in development?”
I nod and pretend I care.
“And like, we work a lot in uh, like Mormon Lake? But, enough about me. What do you ladies do?”
“Mormon Lake?” I ask, “What’s at Mormon Lake?”
“Um,” the wingman blanks, “Mormons?”
Matt comes back to the table carrying our drinks and a beer for himself, “What’s going on ladies?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what they do for a living,” Steve answers. Matt cocks his head and nods to Katie.
“You work in the nursing field,” he says, hitting it dead on, but Katie shakes her head ‘no’.
‘I’m a business major,” she lies, “At NYU.”
“She goes to school with the Olsen twins,” I help her out.
“You’re from New York?” Steve asks her.
“No, well, like, yeah. I’m from New York, but I’m here to visit Stefi.”
“She is here to visit me,” I offer.
“But I’m from New York, but I lived here,” she nods.
Steve nods back, “OK… Where in New York?”
“Hmmm?” Katie asks, then, pretends to stretch and whispers in my ear, “I don’t know places in New York.”
“If you go to NYU, say Manhattan,” I offer.
“Where in New York?” Steve asks again.
“Oh, Manhattan. I love Manhattan!” She answers.
“I know you do!” I joke in a Cuban accent. Nobody laughs.

“How funny was that tonight?” Katie asks later back at her house, still slightly “buzzed” as she said, after drinking the three Long Island iced teas that Matt bought for us since Michelle and I were both driving that night.
“Katie,” I laugh, “You are the worst fucking liar, I swear.”
She looks kind of hurt, and I wonder if she’ll remember this in the morning. “God, really? I thought they believed me.”
“They thought you were drunk,” Michelle pipes up and we turn to look at her. “What?” she shrugs, “It’s true!”

"What made you choose New York?" Steve asks Katie.
"It's liberal there," she shrugs.
"So?"
"I don't think you get it. It's liberal in New York."
The liquor has obviously gone straight to her head.
"So?" Steve is getting annoyed.
"So... I am an Independent and a liberal and New York is liberal. You don't get it. I'm not accepted in this state," she sucks down the last of her first Long Island iced tea.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
"What do you think I'm trying to say?"
Steve is now officially angry, "That you're against the war and that you're a lesbian?"
"Excuse me," I interrupt, "Why are we talking politics again?"
"Why is your friend against the war? How can you say that?" Drama slams his fist on the table, spilling some of my untouched drink. Katie slides it next to her and sips before she speaks.
"Don't get me started on Darfur."
"Oh Jesus..." I quietly whisper. Michelle eyes me and mouths, What's going on? I realize from her side of the table, she can't hear anything over the pounding rap music.

“Ok, ok," The greasy Turtle says, fed up with Katie. Let's get back to the guessing game." He puts his hand on Steve's shoulder to calm him. "Guessing game, yes?"
Steve throws his hand up in defeat, "Fine."
I want to tell them to hug it out, but I feel the reference would be lost.
"Hmmm,” Matt looks towards me. I notice his large body is sweating profusely and that his cotton maroon button down shirt wasn’t the best choice in clothing with his apparent anxiety or drug problem. It looks like someone dumped a bucket of water on either side of his body. “You’re just a student.” He nods towards me, dressed like a nun compared to my tank topped cleavage bearing friends. Then he points to my pink fake Chanel bag. “And you’re Italian.”
“Oh,” I say, “OK.”
He turns again to Michelle, “I can’t tell what you do, but you’re beautiful.”
She just laughs uncomfortably. She doesn’t tell him she’s actually a Budweiser girl. Matt toasts his beer to Steve. “Here’s to taking the week off of work. I work in real estate with Steve,” he says to us, “It’s grueling let me tell ya.” I try to make eye contact with Katie to let her know via ESP that neither of them could possibly work in real estate because their Oxford shirts and black pants make them look like they should be selling us a family share plan with roll over minutes from Verizon Wireless. She gives me a small nod to let me know she reads my mind.
“Can I have your business card?” she asks, “My parents are looking to buy up north.”
“Hey, what’d I just say?” Matt winks at her and wipes away sweat from his forehead. “I’m not working this week.”
“Just a card,” Katie pleads. Steve glances at Matt the way I glance at Katie whenever she gets herself into some I Love Lucy trouble I don’t think she’ll be able to get out of. Like the time she told the hot guy who worked at Barnes and Noble that she was a lesbian and dating me. I had to have a talk with her after that one.
Matt opens his fake Louie Vuitton wallet and pretends to search for a card. “I guess I am all out,” he says. “But our new cards? Are metal. They are awesome. I did this test, and like, I put the metal business cards on a table and the paper ones on another table? And, like, the metal ones were gone,” he snaps his fingers. “It just sucks ‘cause they tear up your wallet, you know?”
Steve nods, “Yeah, they tear up your wallet.”
“I’m gonna smoke,” Matt announces, jumping up from the table and nearly knocking it over. “Anyone else want a cig?”
“Ugh, me,” Steve grabs one from the box and stands up.
The girls and I shake our heads ‘no’.
“You’re no fun!” Matt calls back as he leaves. As soon as he’s gone there is instantly another boy at the table.
“Hey, yo, what’s up?” It is quite obvious that he is under the influence of just about everything. “I’m Jared.” He twitches slightly as he extends his hand and we each in turn shake it.
“Whoa,” he says as he shakes Michelle’s hand, “You’re, like, beautiful.”
I get out my hand sanitizer and slather it on.
“I see you are talking to Matt and Steve?” Jared says and takes out a pill box like your grandmother might have for her blood pressure medication and dumps a few pills into his hand.
“Is that PEZ?” I joke and he laughs.
“No, it’s uh, Oxycodone. Why? You want one?”
I shake my head, “No thanks.”
“How do you know Matt and Steve?” Katie asks Jared.
“Oh,” he knocks back a few pills and swallows sans water, “I’ve been working with them at T-Mobile for about, like, two years now.”
He leans back and pulls out his phone, “So, who wants to give me their number?”
We sit silent for a moment and I answer, “Yeah…” I turn to Katie, “Go ahead, Katie. Give him your number.”
Katie looks Jared straight in the eye, “Jared, I’m gonna be honest with you,” she slurs. “I live in New York.”

Quote of the day:
Creepy Old Dude: "What are you doing for your birthday?"
Me: "Going to a strip club. And applying."
Creepy Old Dude: "Whoa-ha-ho!"