Natasha Ferrier and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night

The night was going fine. Splendid, in fact. Music was playing (music can always keep the mood happy), plans were set (plans that involved David Bowie sporting spandex pants on the big screen, a.k.a. plans that were sure to guarantee a GRAND ol' time), a select few of my companions were quite merry (merry. jolly. intoxicated. whatever adjective you feel like using), but 7 incidents later, it all went straight to Hell. Which is quite fine, really. I'm sure Hell is a decent place where no one is ever cold and you can roast any type of food you want at any place or time, like marshmallows, for instance, but wherever this night had gone was a different type of Hell than I have ever heard about, a Hell where tires are popped, people are punched, fathers have to get up at 3 in the morning to pick up their "adult" daughters, and there are no marshmallows in sight. Not one. Not even minis.

Incident #1 - We were running late to the movie.

Between a minor freak-out that I may miss David Bowie tossing goblins and babies around in the air (a spandex-pants wearin' hunk o' love who loves children: any woman's dream) and the slightinclination of my speedometer, I somehow popped a tire. Damn my tires. They pop all the fucking time. I'm a good driver, really, so good, in fact, that I always keep my eyes on the road. The ROAD, people, where they SHOULD be kept, but apparently this just isn't good enough because some dimwit by the name of Di M. Wit decided that it would be a great idea to randomly pour a shit ton of cement in certain places, making little cement hills, and he did it everywhere, thinking it was quite entertaining, and then even had the audacity to name these randomly-placed cement hills, as if cement hills are worthy of a different name. Ant hills aren't, why should cement ones be? Well, Mr. Wit, I hate your curbs, and obviously your curbs hate me because they won't leave me the hell alone, which brings me to the second incident.

Incident #2 - I popped a tire.

I've never really understood the song, "Pop Goes the Weasel" but if by "weasel" they meant "tire" then I understand completely. And by "completely" I mean more than most. And by "more than most" I mean my tires go pop and then I go scream and then this particular night go to Hell. Shortly after my epiphany that My Tires Suck A Lot, I pulled over and parked, because it's one thing to pop a tire, but it's another to think it's okay to keep on driving on that popped tire and nothing will happen. (I learn from my mistakes, thank you very much.) It is because of this second incident that brought me to incidents three, four, five, six, and seven.

Incident #3 - My car gets puked on.

I see no need to elaborate here. You know what a car looks like. It looks like a car. You know what puke looks like. It looks like chili. Moving on.

Incident #4 - My friend gets punched.

It was probably not the best idea to hop out of my car at 2 in the morning and approach three wasted men who thought kicking my donut tire that was beside my car was the funniest, most entertaining thing they've done in years (which it probably was), but that's exactly what I did, but only to tell them to STOP and that that donut was MY donut and could they please NOT kick it down the street because just because I LEFT it on the side of the street does NOT entail that it is for freebies. That donut is for my CAR. Not freebies. My CAR. CAR yes FREEBIES no. I was just letting it air out, is all. Just giving it a breath of fresh air. Aren't tires supposed to have AIR? Which explains why my tiny tire full of air attracted a bunch of airHEADS. (I could make a lot of puns about air, I'm kind of on a roll here, actually, just like my tire was...get it? On a ROLL?!Nevermind. Now I'm just putting on airs. "AIRS!" HA! Ah just forget it.)

As they tried to make up their minds as to whether or not they were too drunk to change a tire or not ("I know how to change a tire." "But we're pretty drunk, Miss." "But we do know how to change a tire." "But we have been drinking." "We know how to drink, too." Oh, you know how to drink? Is there a method I should know? Have I not been taught the ways? Just change my damn tire, fool. I just want to use you and then lose you, but so far both of these are proving to be quite difficult.), my friend took the liberty of getting out of my car, approaching the three men, and kicking their beer glass straight out of their hand. I then took the liberty to immediately walk away and get back into my car, locking the doors and listening to Drunk Dude #1 gasp, "What...the...FUCK..." The next thing I knew those three kumquats were punching my friend in the face, and then running away. Wow. You're real tough guys, aren't ya? To go around punching people 10 years younger than you, smaller in size, as well, and then to run off? Sure, okay, he kicked their glass, so technically, he started it. But in my personal opinion, kicking a glass and beating someone's face in are two completely different things. Which they obviously realized, hence the running away. Complete cowards. Go suck on your mom's teets while you're at it. But don't expect beer to come out. Cause it won't. Morons.

Incident #5 - I chase my friend around town.

Okay, okay, so "around town" is a bit of a fabrication; it was more of up and down a sidewalk and then into one random alley and then into a parking lot and then behind a building and then to nowhere because my friend outran me because I have shorter legs. Damn my short legs. They make it very hard to chase people around at 3 am, which is not something I do very often but it would be nice if when I did do it I could actually do it, instead of having to stop and stare at my legs and curse them.

Incident #6 - My sister and her boyfriend go M.I.A.

No, I do not mean my sister and her boyfriend turned into Indians and started singing about sticks and weed; I mean after running around aimlessly, I return to my car only to find that my other two companions (there were 4 of us total) were no longer sitting in the backseat of my car. This is when I decided that whoever coined the phrase "things could always be worse" was a very intelligent and experienced individual, or me in a past life.

I call my sister. No answer. I call her boyfriend. No answer. I keep calling. I keep getting no answer. Then I get a text saying they got a ride home. I wish I was the type of person who would think, "Oh good! As long as they are safe, I am happy!" But I'm not. I'm the type of person who would and DID think, "WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE ME A RIDE YOU ASSHOLES."

Now, if you heard this story from the other three, I'm sure everyone's perspective on the tale would be quite different: my sister would talk about how she had to sit in a freezing car for hours while watching one person get punched and then another person chasing him around with two handfuls of napkins yelling at him to calm down; my sister's boyfriend would talk about how he had to call his grandparents to pick him up in the middle of the night and drive another 40 minutes to take his girlfriend home; my friend would talk about getting punched in the face and bleeding nonstop out of his nose and out of his lip and having to tell his friend he was with a trillion times to put away the damn napkins; but I am the one telling this story, so you will hear my perspective.

It was me. And my donut tire. Both of us quite still, both of us remotely quiet, and both of us not really sure where our lives would go from there. I did not imagine the night would come to this, but it had, and there was nothing I could do about it but sit and pet my donut for being the only one there with me. And then, 30 minutes later, I get a phone call.

Incident #7 - I get a phone call.

Yes, I do realize I put "I get a phone call" twice in a row, and THAT, my friends, is strictly for dramatic purposes, which is exactly why I am about to say it for a third time: I get a phone call. From my father.

"WHERE. Are you."

"Heyyyyy Dadddddd..."

The rest is history, history that involved my dad having to come pick me up at 3 in the morning, me having to call my friend's mom since he was nowhere to be found, and me being grounded for the time being. Which is, just for the record, completely understandable, whether I admitted it at the time or not.

The Final Outcome - Everyone is a-okay.

I do hope you already assumed everything turned out just fine, because if it had not, I would not be writing a humorous story about it, because I am not that warped of a human being. Now, when I say "just fine" I do not mean there were no consequences. Of course there were consequences, like me being grounded and having to pay for my car being towed and my new tire and a car wash to get the puke off and the memory of an absolutely horrid night embedded into my head and YES, there were consequences. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." This experiment just didn't turn out so well. Blasted curbs.