The Planning
I'm not usually a huge New Year's Eve guy.(Actually, I'm not really a huge holiday guy generally. Halloween, for some reason, is the exception.)
I neglected to make NYE plans until about a week before the end of 2010, after TM2000 had mentioned he had purchased an extra ticket for an event at Venom... it sounded good enough to me, so I decided to join him and Thor and Thor's gf.
I've been to Venom a time or two, and it is a dance club that is... well... urban. It always struck me as too crowded with dancefloors that double as thoroughfares, but... whatevs. It sounded good enough to me. It was a masquerade-themed party, and I had a pair of masks for us, so it sounded fun.
The Lines Explained
We had purchased tickets. TM2000 had printed them out. And yet we couldn't get in the best line. We couldn't even get in the second-best line, as it turns out.
The best "line" was an amorphous spot where people who knew bouncers got to get in first. I put "line" in "quotes" because there wasn't a line until people stood there. But they seemed to have first crack at getting in.
Second-best was the people who had physical tickets.
That's right. Physical tickets. Not printed-out tickets
So we were in the third-best line. AKA the worst line.
Which was OK, I suppose. Except the worst line didn't move for the first 20 minutes we were in it.
Insensitivities
As we stood there, the four of us, we were pretty close to the front of the worst line. About eight people were in front of us--although for the time the line wasn't moving, we might as well have been behind 300 people.
It was cold. I was getting antsy.
I mentioned that the club is... well... urban. I did not mention that we had prefunked, and I had a fair bit of alcohol in me at this point.
As I watched people in the other two lines (line and "line") move into the club without us budging, I uttered something I probably should not have.
It's not that it wasn't true--it was. It's just not sensitive and I try not to talk this way.
I said, "Man, there are a lot of fat black chicks out tonight."
Oops.
But... whatever, right? One general statement that lacks sensitivity is not the end of the world (unless it's heard by the wrong person, I suppose, then it might be the end of MY world...)
But it didn't quite end there.
I had uttered it, half under my breath, to TM2000. Thor, standing a full 24 inches away, could not hear what I said. So TM2000 repeated what I said. And then Thor repeated it, kinda laughing.
It went something like this:
Me: Man, there are a lot of fat black chicks out tonight.It was, in other words, repeated significantly more loudly than I'd said it. It might have been true (see scientifically-derived charts), but it was too loud.
Thor: What?
TM2000: He said, "Man, there are a lot of fat black chicks out tonight."
Thor: (Laughing) There are a lot of fat black chicks out tonight?
(And, yes, I understand that it was racially insensitive on my part. From this point forward, I will refer to this particular group of individuals as BBBW.)
And, alas, it turned out that a woman RIGHT in front of us sort of fit the BBBW bill perfectly. I hadn't even seen her when I'd made my observation. I'd missed a forest-legged example due to the arboreal abundance.
We almost sprained muscles cringing as soon as we saw her. Oops!
She didn't hear us. I don't think. But for just a moment I thought I was going to get my nearly-frostbit buttocks beat down before the year was out.
While it's conceivable she was pretending to not have heard the slight, and while there was plenty of time for me to get a 2010 ass-whupping at the hands of someone else (BBBW or otherwise) I think she'd honestly not heard us... primarily because of her annoyance with the lack of motion in the line.
Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease
About five minutes after our foot-in-mouth placement, the woman and her friend started talking to us. Or, rather, complaining to us. While I normally would be loathe to talk to a stranger who is not physically appealing in such a setting (yes, I'm not just racist, but shallow. I rock!), I felt badly, so I was really supportive of her whining about the lack of movement.
Not only was I feeling annoyed, too, but I figured that if she complained and got kicked out of the line we'd be that much closer to getting out of the cold.
After another minute or two, our neighbor started to shout to a doorman, asking/complaining/kvetching... I stood with my peeps, silently, mildly embarrassed by her loud-mouthed ways.
And yet? It worked. The line started moving about 90 seconds later, within 10 minutes we were all in the club, and within 12 minutes I was urinating relievedly in the men's room.
A Theme Continues
I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about the interior of the club--from 10:40 or so (when we got in) until 12:15 or so (when TM2000 and I left) not much happened.
Actually, I will comment on the makeup of the club: there were two women that I saw that I found appealing. Physically, I mean. I'm sure many of them had fantastic senses of humor and could delight me with tales of travel and World of Warcraft.
But there were only two that I found appealing. TM2000 and I sort of danced near them for a bit until they got wristbands to get into the VIP area and then they were gone.
By the time we left, I was ready to go. I wanted to talk to (or at least look at) women that weighed less than 1.5 times me.
Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen.
Second Location
TM2000 and I had been wearing masks at the party and, as the first hour of the new year progressed, he decided to remove his but I chose to wear mine. Why? I'd like to say I was cold and it was keeping me warm and that's the reason I wore it, but I think it's better explained by the alcohol I had consumed.
We bounced to a few places around Belltown and, since neither of us were keen to spend money on cover for an hour or so of a bar, we ended up at Karma, a little bar with a DJ and small dancefloor that doesn't charge cover.
We'd been there before and it was more our speed than Venom. Oddly enough, though, there was a high ratio of BBBW:everyone else there, too.
The difference? These ones were handsy. See updated charts.
Which is OK. A little groping never hurt me (so far). The thing is, in the immortal words of Axl Rose, "a little wouldn't do and so the little got more and more."
I walked up to the dance floor, and Queen Groper made eye contact with me. I smiled and looked away.
She then made hand contact with me. Or, more specifically, (her) hand-to- (my) hip contact. I winced and edged away.
Unfortunately, she didn't get the point. She was like a black hole (no pun intended)... every time I got within groping range (which was much farther than I would have anticipated; I think her girth created an optical illusion of short arms) she'd touch me.
My shoulder. My hair. My back.
Ew. Not ideal.
I kept drinking. She kept drinking.
I got more comfortable (or at least inured) to her clumsy and ineffectual advances, and she got ... more drunk.
By closing, I'd developed an ability to avoid her. And she'd developed a willingness to pull up her shirt, revealing a bra-free sight that I will not soon forget and not soon hope to see again.
TM2000 and I exited. He went home. I went to Neighbour's, a Capitol Hill gay dance club.
I didn't wear my mask, but my ability to attract individuals I was/am utterly disinterested in continued. (I know... in a gay dance club?!? Who'd have seen it coming?)
More next time, in NYE 2010: Part II (Non-Hetero Venue).
1 comment:
What a treat. I come back from Egypt, and this is waiting for me? I felt like I was in the club with you! Although I would never go to Venom; it's a bit too... urban for me. Happy new year :)
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