At 10:15 last night, I was in the shower and Julia was brushing her teeth at the sink. We’d just finished a particularly grueling game of dress-up and were joking about how difficult it’d been.
“That was absurd! It was like we’d completely lost our ability to put together an outfit!” one of us began, in our typical valley girl way.
“Yeah, It was like your closet was Pandora’s box!”
“Yeah, it was like a trial! Like…like a Herculean task!” We laughed and commented on how funny it would be if the rest of our evening were a series of trials toward a fun night, each more difficult than the last. Unfortunately, we were right. So, in classical Greek style, here you have it: our own little odyssey.
Number 2: Trial by humanity
Anyone who’s ever taken the subway on a weekend night immediately realizes that everyone else who’s going out has taken a cab. 10:30, 11, midnight, it doesn’t matter, if you’re taking the subway downtown, all six other people in the car will be middle-aged men or women with strollers, shooting disapproving looks at your zebra-print dress. (Yes, I really did wear a zebra-print dress. It was green.)
So imagine Julia’s and my surprise when a 6 train rolled up at 11:05 absolutely packed. We’re talking 9 a.m. on a workday packed. 9 a.m. on a workday at Grand Central packed. All with families and middle-aged folks, all in Yankees gear. We actually weren’t even sure we’d physically fit.
But the Yankees fans, most of them inebriated, scuffled inside enough to let us slip in. Julia and I stood by the door, unsupported, clutching one another and clutching our cute clutches to our chests. We rode this way for 89 blocks in a state of terrified amusement.
Number 3: Trial by fire
We got off the train, walked over to another track to wait for our connection…and melted. Almost literally. We waited for a good 20 minutes, constantly remarking that we could just take a cab but then constantly countering that the train was bound to come the minute we did that. And the heat. My god, the heat. It was easily 95 degrees down there, maybe more, with no air movement whatsoever. When the train did come, we collapsed into seats, amazed we made it out of Hades’ station alive.
Number 4: Trial by water
Thank Zeus, we successfully entered Spitzer’s, a cute beer bar that screams Milwaukee from every corner. There are the dozens of beers on tap, the long wooden tables, the duders in baseball caps—stepping in, we felt as if we’d been transported 300 miles east.
We spotted an opening on the bench along the wall and sat down, carefully pushing someone’s half-drunk glass of red wine against the wall and as far away from us as possible. We were just finishing up our Haberdash Whites when a blond chick plopped down next to us and spilled the wine all over my arm and Julia’s bag. We both gasped and stood up, peering down at the overturned glass, but the girl pretended not to notice. We leaned over and snapped, “It’s fine, no need to apologize or anything,” and the girl looked at us like we were both toads and, speaking straight from her nasal passages, replied, “Ummm, I don’t think I touched it.”
You’re right, dear, I made red wine spring spontaneously from the bench. Screw Hercules, you can call me Moses.
It all went sort of downhill from here. We walked the half-block to Pianos and were delighted to spot the Ashleys again (why would a gay couple come to a straight bar and spend the evening sulking? One wonders) and witnessed a somewhat indescribable concert from a one-man band named Wolfs. Imagine a rotund 20-something dude, cranking techno beats, playing chords on a keyboard with one hand and wailing away on a shiny twisted tuba on the other, swaying to the beat while larger-than-life projections of running wild animals splash over him and the stage. A guy behind us shouted, “This guy is f*cking brilliant” to his friends, which only added to our confusion.
A few more PBRs, a few more songs and we called it a night. I’m not sure what we did to anger the party gods, but I hope now we’ve passed their trials and fallen back in their favor.
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