Mardi Gras!

Fat Tuesday. The ultimate excuse for pigging out and drinking yourself into a stupor. And we didn't have any plans.

Granted, I don't even remember what, if anything, I did for Mardi Gras last year... I was probably on Singers tour, actually. But two years ago, Matt and I celebrated in Venice, and this year the idea of staying in and being boring adults living in suburbia REALLY didn't appeal to me. So when I heard an ad on the radio for a Mardi Gras party at a bar in downtown Baltimore, sponsored by the radio station, with free stuff and a drawing for a free trip to New Orleans, I made the spur-of-the-moment decision that we were going. Matt was dubious, but I think he realized that I just really wanted to DO something, to get out and have fun. Plus the party was an excuse to wear my Venetian mask, and how often do I get to do that? (Answer: pretty much never.)

Well, we knew going in that there was a strong possibility that the party would be totally lame. And it definitely was. We strolled in a good twenty minutes after it was supposed to start, and I was the ONLY one wearing a mask. Matt would have been wearing one, but we were a little too spontaneous for that -- both of his are still at his parents' house. Oh well. They were giving out free masks when you signed up for the drawing, so he got a really glittery green plastic mask... not nearly as cool, but at least I wasn't the only one in a mask after that. The guy from the radio station came over to me looking a little forlorn, since no one was showing up for his big party, and asked if I was wearing the mask because I'd heard about the party on the radio. When I said yes, he got this big goofy grin and gave me a free t-shirt for being awesome. Ha! Sadly, that was all I got out of the evening... we definitely didn't win the trip to New Orleans.

I guess that's not entirely true. We did get free Coors Light stuff. There were these three girls doing a Coors Light promotion, and they came by and gave us chapstick and a keychain bottle opener and free Coors Light. Now, few things taste worse than Coors Light. But turning down free beer is.... dumb. So naturally we took it. Plus these girls had a shitty job. They had to spend the entire night walking around the bar, schmoozing, in stiletto heels that did NOT look comfortable and with their white blouses open practically to the navel. They were very pretty girls, and I'm sure they enjoyed the attention they got, but even so -- that isn't exactly a fun job, not to mention the demeaning aspects of it. The DJ even made them get up on the stage to do jumping jacks. In their ridiculous(ly painful) shoes. And their pencil skirts. With their boobs hanging out. I mean, I laughed along with everyone else, but I felt bad for them, too. I felt even worse after my little faux pas...

So, when the girls came by and asked if we'd like free beer, of course we said yes. One of them came back over to give us our beers and asked, "Did we take a picture of you with the Coors Light girls?"

Well, they hadn't, so I said "no." It was really loud, so she leaned in a bit and said "what?"

"NO," I responded.

"Oh... okay." She walked away. Matt looked at me, confused, and asked, "Why couldn't they?"

Um. "What?"

"Why couldn't they take our picture?"

"...shit."

That's right. She wasn't asking whether or not they had already taken our picture, she was asking permission to take our picture. And I just said "no," twice, emphatically, with no explanation whatsoever. This clearly makes me a total bitch. Accidentally a bitch, yes -- but still a bitch in their minds. Oh, I felt terrible. And I didn't even manage to apologize convincingly, apparently -- Matt convinced me to go over to them and explain, even though I felt really stupid doing it, and I told the girls that I'd misunderstood them and of COURSE they could take our picture, and that I realized I must have seemed like a total bitch (to which the girl replied "yep, a little bit"!), and they said "Oh, no problem, thanks for telling us, we'll definitely come back by and take your picture!" Yeah... they never did. Oh well... I tried. I'm pretty sure they didn't believe me, and Matt wanted me to try again after a while, but I figured it probably wouldn't do any good, so I didn't. I mean, if I were them, I wouldn't believe me either, and I'd be pissed enough from the initial snubbing that I wouldn't really want to believe an apology. So, I get it.

Oh well. It was still a fun night, and we got free stuff, and we had a good time together, and I'm SO glad we went out. :-) And I'm never going to see the Coors Light girls again, probably, and even if I do -- I was wearing a mask! Ha!