The 12 Hour Weekend

*fittedwearer's note: If there's gaps or holes or missing names and other dumb shit in this story, it's because I don't remember it all...I was kinda...uh...ecstatic at the time. I just kinda took notes during the course of the night and am tryna piece it all together as of 12:47pm EST Monday...I was trashed, and it was 2 days ago...gimme a break!

It was Friday afternoon at about 4:38 that the course of my day took a sharp 90 degree turn. It was a little after quittin time but I was still at my desk pondering. I had popped a skittle earlier and with that accomplished, wondered what I was gonna do that night. ('Patrice', a...uh...I think its a girl...that I work with, had asked me out on Facebook*!* that same day, and I impolitely declined. Why impolitely? Well if you've got a extra 20 minutes lying around, search for "Für Patrice" on this site and the poem I wrote about her should explain ev-vuh-ree-thang. There's actually some more to that, but I'm off topic...I'll share later if you want.) The office undulated gently back and forth as I sat there and smiled for no real reason. Just then, one of my job kin work ppls, G, cordially invited me to a nondescript session of drank and lighter usage. I enjoy these activites, and so I aquiesced. 15 minutes late, my weekend began.

We got to his crib and he, his girl, Girlfriend, and I commenced to passing the dutchie pon the left hand side. I was already all scrambled from the other substances in my body at the time, but it was a very nice feeling. My whole body was warm and it felt like everybody liked me or something. We sat in his smokeroom and discussed the normal sex, drugs and entertainment (shoutout to fat Cam'ron! He was much better before he became a pink clad, barbie car drivin flexisexual...again, that's off topic...) that folk discuss on a regular when another one of his homies, named Cuz, came in with the liquor...Red Berry Ciroc vodka.

I was just gonna take it down straight with my pinky out like a high class ruffian, but I was encouraged to try a new drink...after putting 2 scoops of that Country Time lemonade powder in a cup, they filled the cup with mostly vodka, a little token Sprite and a few ice cubes. It tasted like juice. As we all know, these are the worst kinds of drinks, because before you know it 9 are gulped down and you're standing on a table in a bar with your fitted pulled low over your face singing "Kiss from a Rose". (Not that I would know anything about that...) That's no good...but a cruel fact of life is the drunker you are, the easier it is to drink...down the hatch!

After about 2 more hours, a couple more blunts, and a few more stiff drinks, I was feeling on top of the fuckin world. I immersed myself into our drunken babbling, for the moment it was the single most interesting conversation of my life. I was sitting in a particularly comfy suede chair, and I felt like it was giving me a hug. I rubbed the nap on the chair back and forth, giggling..."Whooooa!", came my astute observation. (I'm so glad everybody was plastered...I had to have looked like a damn fool, but we all were too fucked up to notice...) Everything was just euphoric...and since I had long ago passed the point where I could get any drunker, I just kept swilling.

Soon after that, Girlfriend came up with a brilliant idea: "Let's go to Atlantic City!" Cuz and G concurred. I needed to chew it over for a few seconds (almost literally...the one thing about skittles is you grind your teeth...nothing a stick of gum can"t handle, but something to be aware of). On one hand, I had never been to Atlantic City over the age of 21...it sounded interesting. On the other, it was already about 10:30 at night, I had no plans on crossing state lines and we were all various degrees of intoxicated. On a 3rd hand, fuck it, why not! I hopped on board with the random. It turned out that G had the best combination of buzzed driving (no, it is not drunk driving...if you're sloshed enough to get in an accident, you were drunk, not buzzed) acumen and relative sobriety, so he was commissioned to drive. The 4 of us gathered our giddy selves into a car and rolled out.

We rode in the direction of AC, smoking on funstix to kill time and talking loudly about whatever crossed our overserved minds. A number of times I considered that I stood a very real chance at dying, but then I kept concentrating on how pretty all the taillights were when they left streaks, how lovely the music was (I don't even remember what the fuck we were listening to!), how great it felt when I opened the window on the highway and stuck my head out to feel the cold night air blast my face, how soft the car seat was (I was in the back seat with my 6 foot plus frame squished up on the drvers side, but at the time it felt just as good as laying in bed), how when I closed my eyes it felt like I was floating in a pool of warm water, and all other types of weird substance-induced sensory delights. I was, as we say, in my bag...all the way.

After what somehow seemed like 15 minutes and 3 hours at the same time, we arrived in Dice City. In case you've never been, it's pretty much like minor league Vegas. All the pretty lights flashed and danced, advertising all types of debauchery. Low rent prostitutes dragged their well-worn bodies around, crystal meth (aka 500 hr energy) the only thing keeping them on their feet. Other inebreated tourists stumbled happily up and down the boardwalk. (I thought I was so tore I would stand out...turns out I would have been more conspicuous if I was sober! EVERYBODY was on something!) It was like some kind of degenerate Disneyland...in other words, my kind of place.

We went into one of the casinos (the fuck if I rememeber which one...) and I took a few minutes to marvel at the decor. I had never been in a casino before...I always thought it was just a great place to lose one's whole paycheck and/or catch the drips from a coked up hooker. (I did neither...praisedalawd!) For a cheap version of Sin City, it wasn't half bad...there were classy looking statues and shit, a carpet...kind of like if they remade that movie "Casino" in one of those local party halls. Whatever tho, I wasn't here to wonder whether I was standing on imported or domestic marble I was standing on...I was here to get lucky! I pulled up to a slot machine, put in some bill or other, and started to crank the handle. A serving wench came and offered me a free drink, which I gladly accepted.

After about 20 bucks and 15 minutes of sitting there jerking off the slot machine, it wasn't working out. Oh well, fuck it...on to the next one. On my way to slot #2, I was given another free drink. Yay! The next one didn't nut tokens for me either, so I gave up on that after about $10. The 3rd one went a little better...after a few yanks of the handle, victory! The machine squealed and beeped like a happy autistic child as it spewed forth dozens of little coins. I felt like I had reached the end of a rainbow. I won about 60 bucks and another free drink...sweet. I thanked the lady and after slurring a response to a remark about my Cowboys hat and how it should disqualify me, (Every time I go somewhere, I swear!) wandered away to go try my luck on some other shit.

All the blackjack tables were full (they don't have to worry about me counting cards, I can barely count numbers...) so I gave other random games a shot. I promptly lost another $20 to some kind of dice game and some money on some kind of roulette wheel. At this point, I had approximately broken even and may have even made a literal few bucks. I always refused to be the stupid mafucka who goes to a casino and loses everything but they fitted tryna gamble up a miracle, and after all that liquor I wasn't in my best decision making state of mind, so I hung up my chips for the night. Me and my drunkenness were perfectly happy to watch the others gamble and look at the lights...the beautiful lights.

A few more games were played, and then we all stepped outside for a quick smoke. That's where I saw something really interesting...apparently for a low fee you could take a ride on the boardwalk in some kind of person powered transport. The best way I can describe it is "a plastic shower stall on wheels with seats". I didn't get a pic, I was too amazed that these hustlin mafuckas was really out here pushing folk around in these things...plus in my condition, the water looked mesmerizingly cool waving back and forth under the full moon. Very distracting. The smokes finished, we went back inside to fuck around a few minutes more, cash out and leave. Good thing was couple of us won a few dollars and nobody lost huge...all in all, it was a pretty good night in Junior Vegas.

On the ride home before I dozed off, I thought about what I had learned that night:

1) A casino is exactly what I thought it was. I was smart enough to avoid this fate, but if you're not careful you can really lose it all.

2) Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow. Had I not gone, odds are I would have just sat home in the room giggling and rolling around on my bed.

3) There is such a thing as quitting while you're ahead.

4) Slot machines are rigged. Idk how I managed to get anything out of it, but more often than not you're gonna get robbed. There's a reason they call the things one armed bandits.

5) Hate your job? Try pushing people up and down the beach in a odd plastic rickshaw cube at 3 in the morning when its about 20 degrees outside.

6) Skittles are awesome.

7) Free drinks are awesomer.

We rode back, and I got back home at some point. I don't remember actually getting home or going to bed, I just woke up the next morning with all my clothes on and nothing but a killer hangover, about 3 dollars more than I had last night and some memories as souvenirs. However, that sufficed...that few hours out was a weekend's worth of fun the way I saw it. I was perfectly happy wallowing in bed watchin various sporting events for the next couple days. (yes, I showered.) ...Not that I had much of a choice for the 1st few waking hours of Saturday afternoon...ouch. Anyway, it's really just another example of how you only live once and you kinda have to grab life by the dice while you can...especially on a boring Friday night.