You're Gonna Fit In Well With Us

Man, oh-man.

A crazy Saturday night. So crazy that I got into an argument with someone today that it was Saturday. Today is actually Sunday.

It's also my sis's 39th b-day. I wouldn't have guessed, had it not been for an email I sent Friday. Now which day was that? Who cares. I celebrated on her behalf.

Anyway, I woke up this morning really pissed at myself. For starters, I was being really douchey last night to people. I called a bar-back "retarded" and snapped my fingers at him like a kid who is a deaf mute. To make matters worst, he snitch on me to the bartender, whom scolded me for calling people names. That wasn't the funniest part...it was that I apologized to him for calling him retarded and then told him that I was surprised that he understood what I was saying, since he was seriously retarded.

I signed my bar tab and launched the receipt at these guys. Which I felt terrible about now. They weren't ignoring me. They just were too confused to know I was looking to pay my bill. I think it just got on my nerves that the dude was just standing there washing dishes without acknowledging that I was just standing there waiting. It would've been a TOTALLY different scenario had he told me "just hang on a sec, she's getting it together to get to you, really sorry." Nope, nothing like that. It was like the DMV, where the employee knows you won't do shit about it, no matter how much you throw a fit.

I 'aint gonna lie, it felt good to mouth off to these guys. A little too good.

Anyway, so we left that dive and went to another dive. Which is where I lost my phone.

Things suck when you lose your phone. You can't really call it. And you're left wondering if anyone picked it up, the photos and texts could get into some really interesting fingers. Damage could be done.

And it did.

I woke up missing my phone. It's a bad feeling. Backtracking I had to figure out which bar would've been the most opportune place to lose it. And it's the morning so I doubt any place would be open either (more on this later). So I started backtracking, hoping upon hope it wouldn't end up at the worst possible place. The place where I mouthed off to the employees. I just imagined my phone in a gazillion different parts in the parking lot, while the two I mouthed off to sleeping at home with a satisfying grin.

Well, I would try that place last. Since...well, if it was the last stop, I could just get a drink anyway.

But it wasn't the 2nd place we went to. It was the last place.

This divey bar is actually pretty famous. You've seen it in movies. It's a dive. Anyway, it's 8:30AM and I drive up to the back entrance. The door was open and I heard music. I thought I was out of my mind. It might as well have been noon. I go through the door and see the bartender. An old grizzly guy. Looks like he'd been there just for retirement benefits. He was talking about finding phones. I couldn't believe my luck. I piped up: "Hey, my--"
And before I could even finish he finished my sentence "--you lose a phone?"
Sure enough I jumped for joy. They'd found it. But getting it back wasn't going to be so easy. At the end of the bar, a middle aged guy and a middle aged woman were hovered over my phone--

"Are you Hung?" said the cougar.
"What?" says I
"Are you Hung?" she repeated (with a cackle this time)
"No, that's not my name. Hung? What? What's going on?"
"Oh we were calling a guy named Hung. Says here he's your nephew"

So they've been calling everyone on my contact phone trying to look for me. Keep in mind, my first thought was, "that's very kind of them to do this...wow...incredibly generous." Then I realized, they had absolutely NOTHING more interesting to do than to solve this mystery. They were already a few drinks in.

"What time does this place open?" I asked.
"6 AM" says the duo.

They woke up to booze. And, I kid you not, there was a butt in every barstool. It was already raking in customers! Yes, my friends, these are real drunks.

"Well, I called Hung"
"Lady...you just dialed up my nephew in Taiwan"
"Wow" she started laughing to tears "Thailand people up this hour?"
"Taiwan" I corrected her. It's actually Monday morning there.
"Well, Hung...hahaha. Well Hung, get it" His name is Ryan Huang, but I wanted this to end. She gave me back the phone. "Well, Hung (giggle) here ya' go."

Anyway, the middle aged guy and I started rapping about bars, since they were clearly barflies. He offered to buy me a drink. I declined since it was only 8:30AM. The cougar kept screaming that I needed a bloody mary. I really didn't want to drink anymore.

I told the middle aged guy my bar was usually this other place. He told me he had dated a bartender there, whom I'd known for a LONG time and to quote him "crazy as a loon but fucks like a pornstar." That was my impression when I first met her. In fact, one bartender whom I remember vividly, I mentioned to him that she'd gotten really wasted and we started making out. To which he replied "oh yeah, totally, she's known to have blown guys in the parking lot." I won't lie. I got ill.

To make this very long story, longer...he basically knew everyone that I'd been around in the valley. The divey places I'd love as an Ohioan. Translated to the San Fernando Valley in California. These were white trash. The middle aged woman was sweating vodka. The guy with a leatherette fedora declaring how she was going to go home with either me or the other guy while showing me topless photos of his very old, but well-endowed saggy breasted wife. The Irishman who kept making "Hung" jokes and wouldn't relent, since it was his only form of entertainment, and that dog wasn't going to let go of that bone. And finally, the middle aged dude I was rapping with finally said the words I dreaded hearing:
"Buddy, you're gonna fit in well with us."

My guts hit the floor. Yes, this deck of castaways from polite society...considered me an easy fit. And it really shocked me.

I really try not to be judgmental. But a lot of times, your company is who people judge you by. I mean, porn stars generally don't hang with the Amish. And if I relate to these David Lynch throwaways, how must I be perceived in society? A dirtbag? A loser? A drunk slag humper? I must take on these very same traits which bound these riffraff together. And here I was, at the mercy of my phone being lost and Hung jokes.

And you know something? It's not bad to belong somewhere. Or maybe I'm a chameleon and know these people more than I realize. The working class that appreciate the penis jokes. At one point I related to them how I'd been dumped by a fat chick. To which they all seemed to relate. Even the haggard cougar. And, I hate to say it, but...I really did feel comfortable around them. I took their pity. Wow, they pitied me.

Think about it like this, I guess...how are you going to offend people who have NO threshhold in the dignity department. You can say the DUMBEST crap, and they eat it up like it was chocolate ice cream.

These were the great un-wash that have taken what life has given them and said to themselves "Wow, life really is going to make me go through this, well, I'll show life...I'll live it my own way." And decline slowly into maybe...just maybe a step below mediocrity. And to be even more honest, it's not really a horrible place to be. You can forego the B.S. that really brought down our society. The ones where we had to keep up with the Joneses. This grouping are happy-go-lucky drunks. They're only abusing themselves and enjoying the hell out of being inebriated. Some may have already been diagnosed with cirrhosis and death was imminent. WHO CARES? They're going to live in on their terms. To that, I can only envy them.

Later in the day, I got a phone call, it was my friend Adam whose idea it was to hang last night. He was with my other friend Vince, who is in my contact list. His first sentence "I got a message from a lady..." Apparently the cougar had left a message with him.

Vince and Adam...you're going fit in well with us.