Friday night, I'm feelin' alright

Halfway through the Labor Day weekend. I need not mention that I love not having to go to work on Monday.

Part of what I get paid for is to get the mail and separate out all the checks that people send us for "services rendered." As I was going through them on Friday, I saw a check that was for over $18,000. Hot damn, I said! That's a hell of a check! Then I noticed it wasn't written to my company. It was written to the... novelty... store that used to be in our building. Yes, there was a sex toy shop on the premises, before my time.

Now I'm all for consumerism, especially that of sex toys, but $18,000? That's a hell of a lot of money to spend on sex toys. I don't know if I could even spend that much. I haven't investigated it too much, however. That check must be funding one heck of a habit. Or addiction. I hope this person isn't spending rent money on sex toys, otherwise where would they use them? I wish I had so much money that I could spend the equivalent of a new car on sex toys.

So enough about sex toys. (How many times can I use the term "sex toys" in one blog? 6, apparantly.) Friday night I discovered my new least favorite bar. It was loud and had weird displays of barbie dolls. The mojitos are supposed to be mind blowing, so of course I tried one. This drink was actually a soup. The chopped mint leaves were so plentiful that you couldn't actually get to the gooey liquid center without swallowing a few pounds of leaf. And using a straw? Forget about it. The leaves would clog up the straw until you sucked so hard that they flew into the back of your throat and you gagged on all the minty goodness. I did not go for a second mojito.

Instead, I went for my new favorite drink, a rum screwdriver. It should be simple enough: rum with a splash of orange juice. Or pineapple juice if you're feeling adventurous, but that's less of a screwdriver. So I got it, tasted it, and had the worst experience in my young life. My compadres must have sensed this from the horrible involuntary contortions my face was making. Then I did the girl thing: This is the worst drink I've ever had in my life! Taste it! I passed it around the table, with each person making the same horrible face, yet the next person was so intrigued that they had to try it as well. It turns out there was only one sane and/or smart person in our group. When it came his turn to sample the terrible beverage, he politely declined. I bet he didn't regret that decision for a minute.

One good thing about everyone else tasting it was that it was less for me to actually drink myself. When it got back to me, I determined to get my $7 worth. I swallowed my fear and inhibitions, and then swallowed what tasted like sub-well rum (sewer rum?) that had been left out in the sun for a while, mixed with a cheap imitation of a citrus-inspired drink - possibly powdered Tang - and not mixed in any way. The one good thing is that after a couple big swills of this concoction against nature, I started to not taste it any more. Either it burned my tongue completely off, or it was strong enough that I didn't care anymore.

At some point we left the Worst Bar in NYC and proceeded to a better bar, then on to get some 3am breakfast, then home. Unfortunately I did not have $18,000 worth of sex toys to ease my drink-induced pain, so I went straight to sleep.

Stay tuned for Labor Day weekend part 2: The Revenge.