welcome to

cougarville

wednesday night we (me, michelle, donita) hit the streets to take advantage of our holiday the next day. [praises be for corpus christi].
up until wednesday morning we still had no idea where we were going. but by wednesday night, the people i had harassed via text had come through for me and given me several ideas. we knew that whatever happened, there was always crobar.

our first stop was pabloz. if you reach before 11 it would be free. well we got there at 1045 and there was a big confusion as to whether we'd be let in free. there were no cars outside and no line up so that should have been a clue as to what we'd find. we were about to leave, then someone came down and said we could come in free. great! we were excited. ....
silly us.

we got upstairs and found.... NOTHING! the place was empty. cold and empty. well the djs were from a good radio station so we decided to see what would happen.
what happened was a lot of black folks showed up wearing the uniform of the night.
for men it was XXL dress shirts, jeans, and squeaky clean sneakers. for women, it was shorts, high heels and a long sleeve top OR blouse, skinny jeans and flats.
we looked at each other, hated the music and when the place was full-ish at 1145, we decided we'd had enough of watching people watch each other.

we left

and went to crobar.

i was driving. and i am a nervous driver. especially when i dont know where i'm going. especially at night. i learned a lot, lemme tell you!

crobar, thankfully, wasn't crowded, even though it was 12am. we grabbed drinks and sat back to chill, enjoy the music and people watch. i mentioned that being at pabloz was making me feel old. there's only so much [commercial] "hip hop" i can take. the other girls agreed.

there was a click of young guys all in khaki pants and white short sleeved shirts who had obviously had 6 drinks apiece and were not showing any signs of quitting. they rolled up on a heavy older lady, wined up on women sitting down, and when machel's down de road came on, they made their own white shirt mas band - chipping in a line all around the spot.

later on, it started to rain and everyone ran from their seats and huddled under the awning. this forced people to stand, so more people started dancing. when the rain stopped, it looked like a regular jam under the awning. i stepped back out to get fresh air.

one of the white shirts came over to me and started gesturing that i should return to the jam under the awning. he pointed at a second white shirt.
my kennedy station training kicked in and i refused to walk over to them. i figured, if you want to talk to me, you should come to me.
however, we finally got it sorted out: they were saying i should go back under the awning "where the party was" instead of dancing outside there by myself.

i replied that i had to dance where i was to keep [michelle] company because she was falling asleep on the table. (she found THAT hilarious when i relayed the story afterwards. it was funny and true). white shirt #2 told me they were all from a football team from south and had just lost a match, but were determined to have a good time. the khaki pant get-up was the team outting uniform or something. because i refused to go back under the awning white shirt #2 (anthony as i was later informed) requested that i save a dance for him.

no problem.

so just before i was ready to leave, i found anthony and said whatever comes on next, that's what we'll dance to. as we danced, white shirt #1 was sprawled out on the sofa in front of us. quite drunk. a third white shirt came up and asked if i knew this person i was dancing with. sure. his name is anthony. what else do i need to know?

out of curiousity, i asked anthony how old he was. after hesitating, he responded (as i suspected) 20. (and i think he was still lying). he asked how old i was and i told him to guess. 4 guesses later (starting at "21?"), he finally guessed 27. this made him feel quite proud i'm sure.

and shanthy thought SHE was a cradle robber.

yech!

as i left, he tried his luck one more time:

"so can i get a contact number for you?"
"no you can't"
"why not?"
"my boyfriend would not appreciate it (besides you're a child)"
....and he says....
*drumroll*
"so! he doesn't need to know!"

steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeups.
oh child.

"you have a good night, anthony"