frustration
2006-03-26 | 12:39 p.m.

So. Who wants to hear (read) about my maddening Saturday night?

And if you don't want to read these sorts of things, what the hell are you doing here?

So. One of my friends is having a birthday this week. So, she wanted to go out with a bunch of people last night, to this hip little lounge place with live music. It sounded very cool, and I was all psyched about going.

The only problem was that I didn't know exactly where I was going. So, I called up a couple of the people who had also been invited, figuring that I could walk up there with them, no problem.

Only, of the three people I spoke with, two weren't going, and one was going out for dinner beforehand with the birthday girl and her boyfriend. So, no one could walk up there with me. The best they could offer was to give me directions and call me when they were leaving the restaurant.

Okay, fine. I could live with that.

So, they called me when they were leaving the restaurant. At twenty past eleven. They said they'd be at the club in about twenty minutes, which was about how long it should take me to walk there. So I'll meet you guys outside then? I asked. Oh, no, they said. We'll be inside. It's not that big a place, you'll find us.

At this point, there were some alarm bells going off in my head. Going all the way there and walking in by myself was exactly what I had been hoping to avoid. However, just because I'm a big baby doesn't mean that they weren't absolutely right that I'd be able to find them. So, okay.

The first problem to arise was the walk up there. It wasn't a twenty-minute walk. It was almost twice that. In the cold. In an unfamiliar neighbourhood. Alone. In the middle of the night.

Not high on my list of fun things to do on a Saturday night.

And then, when I got to the place, what did I see? A long lineup, and no one I knew in it. The line didn't appear to be moving. I wasn't even 100% sure I was in the right place, because I had been told to expect a live rock band, and I was hearing Justin Timberlake blasting through the dark, frosted windows.

So I tried to call my two friends inside on their cells. No one picked up. I waited a few minutes, then tried again. Still, no one picked up. Too loud in there, I figured.

And then I decided, to hell with it. I had no intention of spending half an hour or more in line, in the cold, alone, to get into a place that was charging a cover when I didn't even know for sure that my friends were inside. Fuuuuuuuck that.

So, I walked back home. Alone, in the dark, in the cold, for forty minutes, through an unfamiliar part of town.

I was halfway back when my phone rang. It was my friend, wondering where I was. I told her what had happened. She stepped out and saw the line, and said oh, she hadn't known, there was no line when she'd gotten there, she was very sorry, blah blah blah. It was her birthday party and I didn't want her to feel bad, so I told her not to worry about it. It wasn't her fault, really. But I was still going home.

A couple of minutes after I hung up, some jackass shouted at me from the far side of the street, hey, are you a hooker? I wanted to spin around and shriek at him, but I just kept walking. Although I have to wonder exactly what it was about plain brown pants, a peacoat and a ponytail that said "hooker."

All in all, a thoroughly frustrating and disappointing night.

looking back | looking forward