The Napkin Diaries

Since Valentine's Day is meant to be spent with the one you love, and I prefer to do things in excess... I chose to spend it with the ONES I love. Or at least a few of them... orrrr the craziest of them. Yeah that's it. For not just only V-day, but V-weekend. Oooh, sounds dirty. I like it.

And, not that I need an excuse, but this made for a really good excuse to party my face off.

So Laura and I started scouring the interwebs looking for cabins in the mountains a few weeks into the New Year. Because mountains are pretty. Then we realized that we don't really live near mountains. Then we realized we don't really give a shit what's near the cabin, we just want to be in one together. Then we realized that we kinda lied about not caring what was near the cabin, because there was now one crucial factor that NEEDED to be part of Cabin Weekend Extravaganza. It needed more than just a cabin. It needed to be a cabin with a mother.effing hot tub.

For a moment's time, we considered the sketchy rental home with a trampoline, but when it came down to it, a hot tub was necessary. Perhaps another holiday will be spent on a trampoline...

So we found a skeezy cabin on a dirty lake in the middle of South Carolina. With a frickin hot tub. Fist pump.

And then Joe & Laura, Brudder Michael, and Dave and me piled into our cars and met in the middle of SC in our little lake cabin with the hot tub.

Laura and I busted into a spontaneous dance party within 7 minutes of being in the cabin together. After we filled up our red Solo cups with wine... and ice, of course. Classy, right?

What's so awesome, is that when we all get together, it's like we never missed a beat. We just pick up right where we left off... which was obviously in a dirty college apartment.

After a few hours of stuffing our faces, sloshing our drinks, and hugging all over each other, the 4 of them suddenly decided I needed to leave. Whaaat?! They were all like, "Nicole. Go downstairs to the Time Out Room*. Now." I didn't understand. But apparently they had conjured up some kind of fantastic surprise and therefore I needed to get my wine-loving ass downstairs. Hmph.

So they banished me. To the Time Out Room. All alone. For like 20 minutes! But they at least gave me part of my surprise to entertain myself with while hanging out in aforementioned creepy room of doom - they gave me a WAND! A Pretty Princess fairy wand. That lit up! Like a freaking rave, nonetheless. So I just swirled that around while I sat on the bed. Then I got bored and stood in the creepy step-dad corner for a bit, which gave me the heebie-jeebies, so I sat back down on the futon-bed and took a picture of my face and twirled my wand some more until Laura came to get me.

With a blindfold!

Ugh. Blindfolds.

So! She pushed me up the stairs, and took the blindfold off... momentarily. I opened my eyes to see a bunch of cute (read: PINK) cupcakes sitting on the counter, surrounded by 4 of my most favorite people in the world; so obviously they were like the best cupcakes ever.

Then they turned me around. To see the surprise. THE SURPRISE. Do you know what the surprise was?! A PINATA! My very own first pinata ever! 27 years old and never had a pinata! Let alone a frackin' surprise pinata! In the shape of a CROWN! That was pink and purple and said PRINCESS! Oh dear lord, do I have some amazing friends or what?!

So remember how I mentioned that they only momentarily allowed me to take off the blindfold? Yeah. That's why. So, back on the blindfold went. Husband spun me around and handed me a pool stick. Does anyone else see the potential for disaster here? Already clumsy girl, now tipsy and blindfolded, has been given a stick to swing into mid-air in hopes of beating the shit out of a cardboard crown hanging from the ceiling in a rented cabin on a dirty lake in the middle of South Cack. ::Shaking head::

I swung the shit outta that stick, too, let me tell ya. But I kept stabbing myself in the boob somehow. Meh? After a while of watching me fail miserably at knocking crap out of the pinata, they had mercy on me and let me take off the blindfold. I beat the hell out of that thing! And finally, all the goodies came flying out.

And can I please take this moment to say that Joe and Laura should be in charge of stuffing every pinata in the universe, because I'm pretty sure they put the best shit ever into mine. Oh? You want to know what they put in my pinata o' happy? Well okay, since you asked nicely:
1. Pixie Stix
2. 1 giant Slim Jim (that contorted into a ready-to-wear headband shape)
3. Ring Pops
4. Hershey Kisses
5. Glow Sticks
6. Monster Truck Stickers!!
7. Mini Bottles
8. 1 Cadburry Egg (that no one got to enjoy because Husband flushed it down the toilet!?!)
9. Pirate Eye Patches

Awesome. I dumped it all into my lap and played with it. Like a 5 year old.

Then it was hot tub time. And you know the one thing you need to make your hot tub time complete? Pasta Salad. And actually what I mean by that is that pasta salad is the one thing in the world you definitely do not need in a hot tub. Because when you try to eat it, or you know, feed it to Laura with a tiny plastic fork and a pirate eye patch over your eye and a plastic solo cup of wine hanging out of your mouth, there's like a 100% chance that you will dump that shit all in your hot tub on the back porch of your rented lake house on the dirty lake. Trust me.

So after our skin got pruney and we ran out of drinks, and dumped half the water out of the hot tub from sloshing around like idiots, we got out. And put on our Snuggies. And slept in our little creepy beds. And washed, rinsed and repeat the next day. (Well, that's not entirely true... we weren't exactly the cleanest of humans that weekend... but we at least did the "repeat" phase, sans pinata. And pasta salad.)

And really, there's only one way to sum up the entire Cabin Weekend Extravaganza. And it can't be done with words. Oh no. It can only be done with a picture. One perfect picture of debauchery, as perfectly displayed by Laura:

And that, my friends, is how you do a Cabin Weekend Extravaganza.

*Time Out Room: Creepy small "bedroom" at bottom of stairs with a futon and wood-paneled walls. Only one small window very close to the ceiling to ensure no escape possible. Also equipped with strange cubby area, likely used by a step-father to watch a small child sleep.

Another trip to Charleston happened this past weekend. Dave, Joe and I took the Celica to the lowcountry. This was a bad idea on many accounts. First, a monsoon hit the upstate and almost drowned us. I made Dave drive which was good and bad. Good because I have crappy night vision, bad because I didn't have control over the brake. I was one big anxiety attack for most of the ride. Blah. We successfully made it, though, and immediately went downtown.
While walking through the parking garage to get to Purple Tree, I managed to wedge my stilletto heel into this teeny tiny crack in the concrete, get my shoe completely stuck and almost fall on my head trying to free myself. Only I could pick the one stupid crack in the damned parking garage to fall into... it took two of us to get the bastard out. I should have known then that I was doomed for the rest of the weekend...
Megan and I started the night off with a Mind Eraser. Followed by another Mind Eraser. God, we are idiots. We had some Vanilla and Diets and one more Mind Eraser... because two just isn't enough. Nothing really exciting happened in Purple Tree. Although I did send Catherine a text to see if she was coming out and it went something like this:
Nicole: are you coming downtown?
Catherine: yeah, where are you?
Nicole: Purple Tree.
Catherine: Dollar?
Maybe she thought I was at the Dollar Tree. I don't know. I never confirmed the confusion...(for those of you who do not know, Catherine is one of Adam's ex-girlfriends, like myself. Her and I, how shall I put this? Shared a few stories and basically became reeeeaaaal good friends and have made many an attempt to actually meet in person, share a hug and take a pleasant little picture for all to see. We still haven't managed to do this, but do not fret, that day will come.) Anyway, City Bar was next on the to-do list. As soon as we busted up in there, the bartender that loves Megan started lining up Apple Bombs. Ooooh weeee, that was nice. So then, a great idea came to Megan and I: we should dance, not on the platform/pole that we usually molest, but rather on the BAR. See?
Jesus help us. We boosted our drunk asses up on the bar... I do mean boosted too -- some dude had to push me to get my ass up there... started shaking our asses and made one hell of a scene. Of course, I almost busted my ass and brought Megan with me. You may not be aware of this, but bars are very slippery when wet. And since drunk girls like us get on these bars and knock over drinks, we are in fact the ones who cause the slipperiness. We danced for a while and then got kinda tired so we decided to get down... most ungraceful dismount ever. We just plopped down and scooted off the edged mid-song. Real classy. I had looked down to see if Dave was watching while I was dancing, but I found him looking around instead. I got all whiney and asked why he didn't want to watch me. He told me that he was watching me, but then noticed the other 30 guys watching me and decided to watch them instead, one particular little Chinese man he said was especially gawking, so if necessary he could kick some moron's ass. I slurred something about him being a sweetheart and such a good boyfriend and how I just love the hell out of him. Yay for Dave.
We went home or got kicked out of the bar or something. Either way, I was a waste case. Had I known the hangover that was to come Saturday morning, I would have never drank a sip Friday night. Curse you, Mind Erasers. How I hate you. So needless to say, I laid in bed until 7 pm Saturday. Dave brought me Sonic, but I couldn't eat, because chewing was too much work. Dave offerred to carry me to the bathroom to puke, but I couldn't move enough to get him to carry me. I was so miserable. We opted to be low key Saturday night so we just went over to Richard's house, one of Dave's friends. I didn't drink a drop of alcohol but managed to laugh my ass off pretty much the entire night. Those guys have some ridiculously HA-larious stories to share. At one point, we went to see something on the computer in Richard's little office area. Well, unknownst to us, we also stumbled upon Booh-Bahs. Yes, Booh-Bahs. For those of you unfortunate enough to have never experienced a Booh-Bah, let me bring you up to speed -- they are these little furry creatures, similar to Tellatubbies, that are fat, covered with forehead warts, and have the creepiest buldging eyes any stuffed animal has ever possessed. They also sing and dance for you. They say "booooooo baaaaahhhhh," pause momentarily, and then play this catchy little tune and kinda rotate poking out their asses and bellies. We put two of the demented monsters face-to-face and forced them to dance together. I have to say that I have never been so amused by a children's toy as I was that night. We repeated this act many more times. That is, until we found the doll manufactured by Satan himself. I mean, we're talking Exorcist shit here. Okay, you know how you used to butcher your sister's Barbie doll's hair when you were little? Well, that's the hair that this doll had. It also had only one winky eye that resembled more of a lazy eye than a wink, really. And lastly, the little son of a bitch would cackle and stick it's horridly long tongue out at you when you squeezed its stomach. Ewwww, creepy. What kid in it's right mind would want to play with that shit?! Richard said he found the bastard at some little backwoods antique-type shop up in the mountains of North Carolina... good to know that is exactly where Dave is from. Yay, my boyfriend's hometown is also the hometown of the little shop of horrors. Seriously, I would be scared to sleep at night with that thing in the house... you'd wake up to find that little shit staring at you with a knife in it's hand doing it's demonic little cackle with its ugly lazy winky eye and too long pointy tongue. Ugh. So our Saturday night consisted of incriminating stories, Booh-Bahs and Satan.
So the trip to Charleston wasnt't the best one, given the worst hangover ever, but it was good and I had fun. And I also now want a Booh-Bah. No more Mind Erasers, though. Ever. Gah.

Michael and Emily met us there -- Yay! I hadn't seen Emily in so long, so it was really nice to see her. We all just sat in a booth and made fun of people all night. I don't know if someone made the decision that all the bad dancers in Charleston should go to Purple Tree that night, but holy hell, every person on that dance floor was a moron. There was one guy just flailing around with no purpose at all, another guy that was just stepping from side to side but not even with the beat and then there were these two really large girls with too little clothing and too much energy bumbling about the dance floor.
I think because of this ridiculousness, Dave felt compelled to buy Mind Erasers. Three 6 ways. Jesus.Christ. So we paired up for the drinks, because they didn't make them into shots -- they were just 3 gigantic glasses of disaster waiting to happen. Dave and I took one glass, Emily and Michael took another... leaving Joe and Adrian the last one to share. They kinda looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, mumbled something about not being gay and just drank it. And really, they weren't kidding when they named it a Mind Eraser. They never kid about that drink. We all got waaaaasted.
We had to make a stop at McDonald's for some chicken nuggets on the way home. And Joe had to get out and pee in the McDonald's bushes. He had decided that he would crouch down and start saying "here kitty kitty" if for some reason cops saw him in the bushes... nevermind the fact he was completely drunk off his ass. Good in theory, I suppose. Luckily there were no cops. Just chicken nuggets. So we ate all those and then passed out.
We all woke up pretty hung over Saturday. Sonic was the cure. And watching Eurotrip. We literally sat on our asses until 7:00 pm that night when we went out for the night. And this time, I had Megan with me! Woo hoo!! We ate at Wild Wings and then ran over to Henry's to begin the drinking. Amaretto Sours were apparently my choice of drug for the evening because I had about 9 of them I think. On top of some Jager Bombs and other funness. Okay, well Dave got drunk in a hurry and was using me as a support beam before we ever left Henry's. I was getting a nice buzz by this time and started getting silly. Megan kept slamming her head into these bricks of doom that were sticking out of the wall behind her. So we decided it was time to change bars. We went to 213.
Well, I think I was drunk there because Megan was wearing this scarf thing that I could not for the life of me remember the name. I looked at it, back and her and then back at the scarf-like object. I was like, "what is this called again? A creme brulle?" She about fell out of her chair. Unknownst to me... the dame scarf is called a Pashmina. Say it with me. Pash-mi-na. Not creme brulle. Who knew? They were playing awesome 80s music so we all felt extremely compelled to sing along. While I cannot remember exactly what song we were singing, it must have been something very intense about love or something because otherwise, we would not look quite so ridiculous. Well maybe... We had some shots, bumbled around, drank some more, took about 86 pictures and then decided it was that time. The best time of the night: City Bar time.
The minute we made it to the bar, the bartender was lining up shots for us. Megan is good friends with the owner and the bartender so we were priority there. Yay for Megan. Apple Bombs for all. Mmmm, heaven. So Megan and I started shaking our asses. Then we had to go back for more drinks. This time it was a Beam and Coke for me, a raspberry martini for Meg, and a double Jager Bomb (that had not enough bomb whatsoever). Mr. Bartender only charged us $12 for all of that! Hell.Yes. This called for a celebration -- on the platform with the pole. It's tradition. Megan and I cannot go to City Bar without completely making a scene on this pole. Ah, how I Iove shaking my ass. So I don't really know what caused it, but Megan decided that using her belt for a prop was the best idea of the night. It was quite amusing. I think I have a picture with ever person using the belt in a different way. You'll need to check out my pictures for the full effect. We closed down City Bar and went home. It was such a bad ass night. Way fun.
Well, when we got home, Dave and I got into "serious talk" mode. And we ended up sitting on the bathroom floor for almost 2 hours. When we finally came out and decided to go to bed, we realized that Joe was not in his designated spot on the couch. We freaked out and thought he left. So Dave went to the jeep to get a flashlight and started searching the jeep, the truck bed, the bushes and the backyard. We couldn't find Joe anywhere! So we started searching every room in the house. We found him on the floor next to so unpacked boxes with our comforter... passed out. Jackass. Had me scared as hell. I thought he ran away. Gah, Joe. So we fell asleep.
Woke up hung over again. Ugh. This time we went and ate the hell out of some crazy good Italian food. Mmmm. We finally left Charleston. We almost had to stop to steal the sign that said Speed Hump Steve's Step Mom. That was funny. We stopped at my house in Simpsonville for some real food and then came back to Clemson to pass out again. Hell of a good weekend. I think we all needed it. And the six-pack got to reunite -- always a good time. I love you guys!

So, I am officially the new girl at Esso. Wooo Hooo! I am way excited about this job. Candle actually had been hounding my ass about applying for a good month or so and I finally gave in and tried it out. My first day was Monday. It went really well. Minus the smart ass kitchen guys who refuse to call me Nicole and refer to me only as Damn New Girl. But I give them hell back, so they like me. They actually have said they think I am quiet. Ha! I told them to give me a week. They'll see. So today I actually ran around on the floor all by myself. Yay. I have a job. And I managed to get through my first real day with only one screw up. So thank you, Candle, for making me get a job. Heart you.

In other drunk news: last night was karaoke with Ed Miller. Duh. Joe and I drank Christmas (beam and coke, for those of you who have not been keeping up with the blogs). So Candle was all hellbent on singing. I really didnt want to, but she was like "get fucked up and then you will!" so I did. and we did. "Nic and Company" (me, Candle, Joe and Jayson) sang Shot Through the Heart. I was waaaasted. And I sorta took over the performance. Imagine that. I was rockin' my tacky shades and using the mic cord as a dance prop. I also incorporated a few well-placed CHAs into the song. For my fantastic efforts with the cha, Ed Miller rewarded me with free shit. I got to pick from a pile of junk, and of course I went for the biggest, gawdiest, most ridiculous thing I could find: a big ass golf ball with the Miller High Life Light logo plastered across it. Cuuuute. Tacky as shit. Love it. I'm going to display it in the apartment, along with the road sign that I stole this weekend in Charleston that reads Speed Hump. Yesss. Cha! (I will get to the Charleston story momentarily) So, yeah here is a lovely picture of us posing with our ball. Ha. Everyone wanted to touch my ball. I was like no, bitches, it's my ball... so I was drunk. And then I got to take it to Beezer's. Which was amusing. Yay for balls. Ha.

So okay, also in drunker news: I drove to Charleston Saturday to get waaaasted with Megan and Emily. We went to City Bar and did the normal round of 8000 shots and then grinded with the pole. I pretended to dance on it... in all actuality, the pole was the only thing keeping me standing. We left City Bar and ran over to 213. Lucky for us, I had aquired a VIP pass which allowed all of us to weissel in without paying or waiting. Sweet. However, it was way packed out, so we left and went to Wild Wings. Took even more shots. And eventually got kicked out at closing time. Fuuuun. We ate the hell out of the hot dogs that we bought at 2:00 and then we took Emily back so she could pass out and avoid the madness that was to come. The madness came in the form of Thee Southern Belle; the fully nude, trashy ass titty bar in Charleston. They actually have redecorated and now have couches everywhere -- like it looks like theater seating in there. Ridiculous. Also ridiculous that I know they have redecorated. Me, Megan and Andrew sat there for like 4 hours in amazement of how well these girls could shimmy up and down a freakin stripper pole. Around 5:00 am, all the girls pranced out and we got to pick our favorite to go get a private dance from if we wanted to. Our girl Cookie was there! Yesss. (If you recall, over Spring Break, we liked the girl in the girlscout costume, and I appropriately named her Cookie and she had since become our favorite stripper.) So we go in the back room, whereupon she absolutely molested me and Megan. Like, Megan actually held my hand for a second because she was so freaked out. Really funny. Cookie was all swingin her hair on us, breathing in our ears, purring, smacking her ass, biting us, buzzing in our crotches... yes, buzzing. And it is really strange. And I'm not sure exactally how I feel about that still. The girl is nuts. After she was done with her little show, Megan said my name for some reason and Cookie was like, "Nicole?! That's my name, too!" I was like, "I knew I liked her for a reason." So yay, I have the same name as Cookie. Ha. There is an accompliment. What a night. We even got huge t-shirts out of it.. with half naked chicks on the back. Woot.

So today we have learned that it is good to say yay for new jobs, big balls, and stippers.

The End.

It was party-your-hydraulic-ass-off weekend in Charleston. And let me just note that indeed, my hydraulics, along with hips, thighs, and arms are all in pain from the madness that was the Chucktown Shindig.
Emily and I drove down Friday night and we were ready to get the party started around 11:00. It was me, Emily, Michael, Matt Pat, Sarah, David, Adrian, Stephanie, Dan, Rob, Mark and of course my Megan and her friends Andrew and Chris. We went to the Blind Tiger first, but I was itchin' to shake my ass, so I rounded up most of the group and forced them to go to City Bar. Oh it was worth it. Megan of course bought us 8000 shots and David even did a round or 27 for us. Me, Megan and Stephanie put on a show on the pole; however, we were rudely interrupted by these crazy seizure-like Chinese people. Gah. Wait your turn. Like really, they convulsed for 6 minutes straight. I was like WTF and just took more shots.
A little later into the night, Mark and I finally introduced ourselves for real to each other. Let me tell you, this kid can friggin' dance. Holyshit. He is amazing. And to find a guy that can actually show me up, let alone keep up with me, is way hot. So yeah, Mark and I decided we needed to host a little show around the pole. We did these badass moves that actually looked kind of choreographed. It was the hottness. Then of course, the crazy Chinese couple had to get up there and like have a dance off with us... what is this? You Got Served?... They were just jealous of mine and Mark's sweet moves.
We finally had to remove our hydraulic drunk asses from the bar and go the hell home. We only had one vehicle for 7 of us. Can I now thank Adrian for being super awesome and for driving a super massive Titan truck? Yeah, thank you. We put Steffles (as Mark likes to call Miss Stephanie) in the front seat so she could semi-sober her cute little ass up. It took us like 32 hours to get out of the parking garage. For serious. Well not really, but at least 32 minutes.... so all the while, Stephanie decided she needed the vent to blow directly on her face with minimal space between her and the AC. Well, this worked out well, until we had to use the break and she smacked her entire face into the grill of the AC vent. Then she made the pouty face and accompanied it with the 'awwww" scrunched her nose, rubbed her forehead and cheek and took it like a champ as we all made ridiculous amounts of fun of her. Loveyougirl!
David, Adrian and I realized we still wanted to drink, everyone else went to bed and I went back to their apartment. Yeah, we had good intentions of continuing the binge, however we got sucked into American Dad, Family Guy, Sealab 2021, and Venture Brothers and finally gave up around 4:00. Thank you [adultswim] for entertaining my nocturnal ass time and time again. Oh and Dave, quit using all your crazy spy techniques to look at this entry and read my blog like all the other normal kids, gah. Haha.
Everyone was a waste of space on Saturday. It was a hellova monsoon too. Which was beneficial -- allowed for minimal movement and a good excuse to only change positions on the couch when a given body part began to tingle. We came to life around 6:00ish. We ate at Southend Brewery and were at Purple Tree Ultra Lounge by 9:30. Enter the drunken madness. It started slow, we were the first alcoholics in the bar. So we immediately started doing round after round after round of shots. Some include, but are not limited to: red headed slut, royal flush, mind eraser, perfect pussy, soco kamakazie and i cannot remember the rest because I got waaaaasted. So yeah, at first we were semi-bored, but fret not that all changed quickly. We were so damn entertained, it was stupid. Purple Tree has these screens on the walls that project these crazy patterns that resmeble somethink like the following: (a) sand and oil, (b) mercury, (c) liquid hot magma, (d) zinc and food coloring. A consensus was never made. But theses crazy things changed colors and only repeated small amounts of the pattern... needless to say, we didn't need drugs to enjoy the goodness that was the spinny light designs of wonder on the walls of the ultra cool ultra lounge. And there were blinky lights on the ceilng and color changing panals on the walls. My preferred color of the evening was the underappreciated sea-foam green.
Then it was dance time. Steffles, Millie, Mr. Mark Gramling, and myself found our crazy asses in the middle of the dance-a-thon and went completely buckwild on the floor. Though this time the floor was saturated in filthy spilt beer and liquor and other unknown substances which made for difficulty in manuevering in the insane pink heels. Being the pro I am however, I conquered the filth and danced my ass off. Until the crazy techo music entered. Do you know how hard it is to dance to techno when (a) you do not have glow sticks, and (b) the bass sporadically leaves the song? Everyone would just kind of stand there and bumble around until somewhat of a knock would come back. Stephanie and Emily gave up and returned to their tasty drinks. Mark and I however refused to stop. He came up with a really funny, yet useful idea: dance to the song in your head. He did. I did. And apparently we picked the same song because we were the only two people really dancing and we were actually pretty in sync given the fact there there was no freakin rhythm to the song at all. Yeah, we rock out to the max.
Bar tab: $415.00. Holymotherfreakinhell.
None of us wanted to stop drinking, so we all went back to Sarah's. Way fun. All the Takenoters/Tiger Roarers sang for us, everyone took turns on the bongos, Emily and Michael passed out on each other on the couch (yes, Emily's mouth was hanging wide open), and we were too lazy to play circle of death, so instead we just played never-have-i-ever. That was my genius idea. We finally peaced out around 4:00. Damn, we know how to have a good time. Emily and I treked home around 5:30 Sunday afternoon. Had a little roadrage, well a lot, but we made it. And it was damn fun.
So way super massive thanks to Emily, Megan, Michael, Mark, Matt, Stephanie, Dave, Adrian, Sarah, Dan, and Rob. I had such a blast. And I am so so happy and excited that I got to better my friendships with all of you. (And way glad I had someone to dance with my crazy ass the whole time... Mark...). We know how to do it right. Love you guys! Looking forward to doing it all again for July 4th!