Plain White T's

You know how one of my first two rules is don’t get drunk? Well, I did. Three days in a row, in fact. And it turns out that the main side effect of heavily drinking while watching three days of consecutive upsets is being incapable of sitting at your computer and writing in complete sentences. 

 We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, but, like, Friday’s games of UNC vs. Auburn and Duke vs. idk who cares?

 I realize that what I am about to say is completely out of touch and absolutely insane, but since my last outing, I used my Bloomingdale’s points to buy a $68 plain white t-shirt that is so flattering, it actually gave me more confidence to go out and talk to guys. Yes; a flattering but absurdly overpriced plain white t-shirt can do that. No more complaints about frizz, cheese tummy, or an overall sense of the noncontroversial era of Woody Allen Jewishness here, fam. I swear, even my eye make up looked better. This t-shirt made me feel like I freakin’ ran Busby’s.

I got to Busby’s in Santa Monica around 5:30 on Friday, so, you know, half an hour late, because I was busy kissing my fingers and flourishing them in the air like a jaunty Italian, just so pleased with myself over my Barney’s Beanery post and how good I looked in this new t-shirt.

 I’d like to take a hot second to say that this the first time I will not be featuring a picture of my partner in crime, not because Sara isn’t very pretty, but because she has a job that is much more serious than mine is, and even though I deleted all of my questionable tweets from 2011, I was respectfully told that that doesn’t really work for her. So to make up for a lack of pictures of Sara, I want you to picture her like this when I describe my time at Busby’s:

So, Busby’s: there were literally people who came in straight from CrossFit. I want to be chill about this, but as someone who should truly never be seen in public after a really hard work out to the point that I apologize to baristas if I stop for coffee on my way home, I feel that by giving other people that courtesy, I deserve to drink alcohol without seeing that your shirt gets unflatteringly wet in the stomach area too. 

 Needless to say, we left the bar area to explore.

This place is massive. It had a movie theater style seating area with a big screen, there were a bunch of communal tables with groups who did not want to sit with us, though a very nice dad tried to help us find a hostess, a room of vintage arcade games, and, what I will describe as, like, an 80’s church basement that had a back bar. I don’t know.

 We decided to awkwardly perch behind the movie theater area, since no dudes at communal tables would even look at us, and I got up to grab us more drinks when I saw it: there was a back room. With guys!

 I grabbed Sara and we marched our way back there to hear that it was closed for a private event. Ugh. Of course.

 But, no!!! A somewhat short young man who was vaping away like the free spirited twenty-something he was told us (his words, not mine), that because we were pretty girls we could go back there! Why would I ever go out with not girls!?

 Don Vaper played “bouncer” and IDed us and I played along because I always do for the story… and then I realized as he was inspecting my ID that not only did I recently take the worst license picture of my life last month, but for some dumb reason, the state of California includes your weight on your ID? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, CALIFORNIA?! 

 Clearly our friend didn’t notice or care or couldn’t read and introduced himself and his fellow “bouncer,” then, as if on cue, a slew of young preppy men joined us. You guys, it was happening!  Our fake bouncer friend graciously introduced us to everyone like he was giving us a grand tour of his Wonka Factory. Snozberry should be a Juul flavor, right?

 The thing is, he was a Johnny Depp, not a Gene Wilder Wonka. He got a little territorial. He had to tell us conspiratorially who was an idiot, who was married, who was an even bigger idiot, and wanted to scare everyone away by telling them that I didn’t wear any pants to work. He’s not wrong, but come on, bro. He then asked us to guess how old he was. The answer is between 22 and 27.

 All of this stopped mattering for a brief moment, when his taller, better looking, confident friend with the energy of someone who goes golfing regularly with his five brothers came over, gave us a look of “I know,” handed us drink tickets, and swiftly disappeared. “Come back…” I thought, to no avail.

 Oh, did I mention they all worked for a couple of major football teams? Sara is actually bilingual in Sports, and ended up talking to their boss for over half an hour about the current state of the NFL, and, like, multiple teams and leagues, and players, and, I don’t know, the economy? I was happily standing there and smiling dumbly while they spoke rapidly in Greek and then every once in awhile I’d have an opportunity to contribute something useless, like, “the water is very blue in pictures.” 

I think UNC lost somewhere during this time. Or so I was told, maybe twenty minutes after the game ended, because I loudly said, “WHAT?!” in shock, like I’d been invested my entire life. 

 We headed back to the bar where a very sweet romantic lead from the hypothetical Revenge of the Nerds reboot immediately popped up to ask if we were there for the board game Meet Up. I am familiar with Meet Up. I actually applied for a job there in my mid-twenties because my tenure as a front desk person at SoulCycle made me cry all the time from waking up really early, but withdrew my application because my “weekend” would have been Wednesday and Thursday, and fuck that. 

 My real question is this: why, and I mean WHY would you have a board game Meet Up at a packed bar on a Friday night during a Duke game?? That is a lot of required surface area if you are playing board games, plural. I’m just saying.  I have several logistical follow up questions, because I’m really not over this. We talked to this sweet bb for like, ten minutes, clearly because he couldn’t find anyone else from his group, and also my flattering t-shirt gifted me the power of compassion and generosity.

 Overall it was a fun night where I watched absolutely zero basketball, but it was definitely my most social outing to date that included free drink tickets and running into someone who Sara and I both knew in completely separate but totally east coast private school ways. It was definitely not a flirty outing, but Sara and I were called pretty! 

 Look, NO ONE is ever going to beat Ricardo (don’t worry, guys, he comes back, which I can tell you because I’m writing about Friday at the end of my Sunday). But as I calibrate what constitutes a successful learning experience from a game day, I think I’ve learned that girls have more fun (duh), maybe don’t get into a spectatorship in scientific sports talk, and definitely don’t walk up to attractive men, polling them about the project if you want to have a genuine connection. 

Most important: I must buy more of that white t-shirt.