little, yellow, different

remember that scene from wayne’s world, when they were doing commercial rips and they were talking about nuprin being little, yellow, different?  the title of this entry comes from a lighthearted place, but the entry does not.  here is the saga of what went down last night (Halloween night).

my friends and i decided to dress up as the four seasons to paint the town red.  we got tickets to the block party downtown so we can truly revel with halloween’s finest drunkest 🙂  i had had a somewhat stressful week, with a big deadline wrapping up Friday and some big research paper issues this week, so I was ready to live it up.

i end up being designated driver because of my inability to drink (stupid methotrexate).  normally, me driving downtown is already bad enough.  now, put me behind the wheel when there are 90 bajillion drunk folks wandering around (and in costumes!  having a “disguise” tends to make others less inhibited..or is that just the alcohol?), and i’m even worse.  first there’s the parking issue.  there is NEVER any street parking.  then there’s all the one-way streets.  yes, the city is set up like a grid and really, the one-way streets go every other street in one direction, but i always manage to get all turned around.  slap a car full of on-the-way-to-drunkville passengers onto that package, and i’m kind of a wreck.

anyway, we make it down there unscathed, safely parked, and ready to party.  we get to the wristband pickup for the block party and it is PURE insanity.  There is this giant blob of people, none of who seem to be moving at all.  we sashay to the side, asking the security where the pre-paid line is.  he goes, “you’re looking at it.”  oh man.  so we squeezed back into the big mass of people and wait.  and wait.  anddddd wait.  there is no movement whatsoever for about 20 minutes.  we finally start inching forward after about 35 minutes, show our IDs about 4 times, and after another 20 minutes of waiting in the pre-paid ticket line, we are finally ready to party!

except we weren’t sure where our other car-full of friends were.  we spend about 30 minutes texting and calling, trying to locate each other.  when we finally do meet up to head to a club, there were three lines and none of them were moving, either.  we decide to head to another location, and ended up at some random pub where there was a live band.  it was okay, but definitely not the first place i would think to go on halloween night.

since it was already getting late, we headed to dick’s last resort, which i would never, ABSOLUTELY, under ANY circumstances, ever return to, ever again.  four thumbs down (i count the thumbs on my feet, as well – this place was THAT bad) to dick’s last resort.  the name literally holds true, don’t go there unless it is a last resort.  and even then, just go home!!

we walk in, and there are a ton of people dressed as sailors.  or, at least we thought so.  turns out they were ACTUAL sailors.  so there were the sailors.  and then there were the drunk/skanked out girls who were letting random guys feel them up.  and then there were the 40 or so guys who were wearing football jerseys.  it was an “interesting” crowd, that’s for sure.  and there was a ton of shredded toilet paper scattered across the floor, for some reason.  all of these should have been indicators that we should have turned and bolted out the door.  but being tired, hungry, and not drunk enough, we decide to hang out anyway.

we sit down and get into the live band that’s rocking out on the stage.  we even decide to order a few drinks and some grub, since we’re there.  the waiter takes about 20 minutes to come back to us, after telling us “i’ll be right with you guys.”  when he does get back to us, he takes our drink orders and leaves, even though we indicate we’re ready to order. another 20 minutes roll by, and he finally comes back with our drinks and starts taking our orders.  my friend asks if we can do split checks.  he replies “YOU can split the checks.  i won’t.”  already a great start.

we ask a few questions during our orders, and i guess this bugs him.  he tells us to stop asking questions and then walks away while my friend is mid-order.  how are we supposed to know what we’re ordering if we don’t ask??  he finally comes back to take our order 10 minutes later and we get our food another 30 minutes later.  speedy service is not their forte.

while we were waiting, my friends and i were chit-chatting about random stuff, when we noticed something hit my chair and bounce off.  we didn’t think anything of it, since it was just so odd.  about 10 minutes later, something flies over my head and lands on my friend’s lap.  it’s a rolled up piece of paper.  we decide to ignore it, cause we really just don’t care at this point.  it’s late, we’re tired, we’re hungry, who the heck cares?  and then it happens again.  ANOTHER piece of rolled up paper hits my shoulder and bounces off.  this time it’s starting to get me annoyed – why the hell are you throwing paper at us?  my friend who is facing the paper throwers glances up, but can’t tell who’s doing it.  by this time, our food’s arrived and we’re about to dig in when another piece of scrunched up paper lands on the table.  i swear it’s getting old.  if you have a problem with us, tell us.  if you want to hit on someone, do it.  it served no purpose whatsoever to just throw wadded up pieces of paper at our table.

then there was the dancing.  for some odd reason, the sailors thought it was appropriate to dance between the tables, even though there was absolutely no room to do so.  they formed a conga line, for some odd reason, and were snaking their way through the tables, trying to get people to join.  nobody wanted to, but that didn’t stop them.  one of them tries to grab my friend to dance with them.  she pushes his insistent hand away, only to have her chair pulled out from underneath her!

really guys, this is NOT the way to get a woman to dance with you.  since they failed at getting her to join, the drunk, grope-happy sailors then tried to get ME to join the conga line.  since i had already seen them pull her chair out, i knew what was coming and moved out of the way when they yanked my seat out from under me.  they kept trying to grab me around the waist to join, but i was too quick and too sober for them, so i just darted out of the way.  but i swear, if ONE more drunk sailor had tried to grab me, he would have lost a limb.

anyway, we wrap up and after the boys have drained their arrogant bastard ales, the waiter brings us our check.  he makes a snide comment that i thought nobody else heard but me, but i was wrong.  he hands us the bill and says “don’t worry, i gave you guys the asian discount.”  i kinda laugh it off, cause i’m not exactly sure what he’s talking about.  i was with a mix of people that night, so it wasn’t like we were all asians.  but my friend heard it, and goes “excuse me?  what did you just say?”

waiter: “i said i gave you the ASIAN DISCOUNT.  could you not hear me?”

my friend goes “what is that supposed to mean?”

waiter: “nothing.  don’t worry, the asian discount comes with soy sauce”

at this point, we all realize he’s taking the joke way too far, and my friend says “that’s a fucking racist comment you just made and i don’t appreciate it.  i’d like to speak to your manager”

the waiter continues to clear our table, ignoring my friend’s request.  so my friend repeats “i’m not joking.  you just made a fucking racist comment and i need to speak with your manager right now.”

the waiter starts to walk away and then stops, turns, and says “look, this is dick’s last resort.  did you expect us to treat you well here?”

this enrages my friend even more, cause yes, we understand that the humor of the place is supposed to be sarcastic and “off,” but racist remarks that seemingly came out of nowhere were uncalled for.

he turns and walks away, telling us he’ll “get the manager or whatever.”  well-spoken guy, really 🙄

the manager comes and apologizes and promises to talk to the guy, and then takes off a considerable amount of our bill (leaving just the alcohol, i think), and really gives us the impression that he understands.  but by this time, we were just tired and annoyed and really deflated.  it’s so odd, that in this day and age, racism is still everywhere.

especially because i AM in california, i guess i thought it would be less prevalent.  i’ve never felt more “little, yellow, different” than i did that night.  i never know how to react to racism, to be honest.  i think it’s because i haven’t come across it much in my life, and not very often at all in the recent past, so i’m always caught blind-sided.

in any case, it was a strange halloween.  hopefully next year is better.