In which I got dressed up for a fancy dinner at a posh resort and wound up in a shrub in the rain at 1am

With 3 weeks left until my self-designated deadline for awesome, the pressure is mounting. And when the pressure mounts I do a few things: I shop on Etsy, I watch Netflix, and I drink tequila. Which is what happened last night. Before I get into this, I am leaving a note here for myself:

Reminder - go find my missing shoe under the house.
More on that later.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not really. I needed a little stress relief, and Sarah proposed dinner - she had a gift certificate that was about to expire. The only thing better than a nice dinner is a nice dinner that someone else is paying for, so I enthusiastically agreed to help use up that poor, almost expired gift certificate. We were headed to a resort near her house, which is a long way from my house, and I offered to pick her up on the way. Nice night, beautiful drive, I arrived to find her standing on her desk rummaging around on a bookcase. The gift certificate, it seems, was missing.

On to plan B - a sweet little BYOB place across the street from the ocean. Sarah dusted off a couple of bottles of red wine from her wine rack and stuffed them in her purse, and we headed over. There was a wait for a table so we went to the mexican place next door and sat down at the bar, the bottles of wine clunking together in her bag oh-so-discreeetly. And that is when things went south (of the border). "Our drink special tonight is a double house margarita for $4.50" the bartender cheerfully informed us.

"Well then I guess I'm having a double house margarita rocks, salt." Sarah replied without blinking.

I blinked.
"Uh, sure. Yeah. Okay." I smiled weakly at the bartender and she headed off to make our double margaritas.

I may have said "sure", but inside my head was saying "ARE YOU INSANE?"

Fast forward thirty minutes, and I am completely wasted. Give me twenty minutes and one strong drink, and I am stumbling, knocking things over, dropping stuff on the ground wasted. I have no idea how I survived my twenties. I texted Sam "Already drunk sleeping at Sarahs Sorry." His response: "WHAT HAPPENED?" I looked at the clock. It was 8:14pm. I drank a glass of water and paid the tab. I needed to get some food quickly, or there was going to be trouble.

But of course, it was already too late.

Dinner was Sarah ordering, and me raising my fists in the air and hissing "YESSSSSSS" after each item. "I love that you are getting arm boners over chopped salad." she remarked as the waitress walked away. And then the cheese plate showed up. More celebratory arm boners ensued. "We are going to need the wine." Sarah informed me solemnly as she reached into her purse.

I didn't care about the wine - I was grinning like an idiot, trying to somehow get the goat cheese from plate to crostini without dropping it on the table. The cheese made it, and I spread it oh-so-carefully, before topping it with mango chutney - but then I ended up dropping the entire crostini in my lap. I also dropped my knife. And fork. I stayed away from the red wine because I was afraid of breaking the glass.

It was a short dinner, mainly because I was having trouble maintaining eye contact. Needless to say, I was not driving home. Or anywhere. I did manage to get in the car and be driven to Sarah's house, where I drank another glass of water, tried to have a conversation, and then passed out. I woke up at midnight, sober and horribly hungover.

"I think I have food poisoning." Sarah muttered from the other side of the bed.

I stood up to make sure I was really sober. Sadly, I was. Truly, miserably sober. And sick. The thing about being a lightweight with a crazy metabolism is that you get drunk fast, and you get hungover even faster. "I think it was the margarita." I said, wincing. "Or the goat cheese. Or the lamb. Or the red wine. I need to go home now, I don't feel well."

So I drove back up the mountain in silence because the radio was so loud and dumb and people were singing and talking and they just wouldn't stop. I spent the entire drive thinking about what a TOTAL MORON I must be to drink a double margarita on an empty stomach, and then fill my stomach with anything other than a taco. I got home by 1am, and it was windy and drizzling - the rain whipped my face as I climbed the stairs barefoot, carrying my shoes and purse in one hand, and clutching the handrail with the other. The dog greeted me with his usual unbridled enthusiasm, leaping in the air and twisting around in unthinkable ways, landing and running in circles before leaping up again. Ignoring him, I turned the door handle and leaned on the door with my shoulder to open it.

It didn't budge.

The deadbolt was locked.

I put my purse down and found my keys, and then turned back to the lock, trying to get the key to turn in the dark with the rain pelting my back. The key didn't fit in the lock. The key was for the doorknob, not the deadbolt. I was locked out. At 1am. In the rain.

I walked over to the sliding door.

Locked.

The bathroom door.

Locked.

The porch door.

Locked.

The dog was beside himself. Was this a new game? Was I going to let him in the house? AND DID I HAVE ANY LEFTOVERS?

I turned and headed back out in the rain to check the front door.

Locked.

I stood for a minute trying to clear my head. I called Sam's cellphone as I leaned my forehead on the cool glass of our living room window, and watched as his cellphone lit up on the kitchen counter. He was never going to hear that. Shit.

I knew what I had to do.

I walked down the stairs, across the yard, and over to the side of the house. Standing in front of our window is a large hibiscus shrub. And I was going to have to climb it. I stepped into the mud that surrounds the foundation during rainy season, and reached up for a branch to use for leverage. I climbed up. And up. And up. The entire bush bent dangerously. A shoe fell out of my hand, Why was I still carrying a shoe? My purse tipped and in an attempt to keep it from dumping all of it's contents out onto the ground, I grabbed for it and let go of the branch, falling/jumping out of the shrub and calling for Sam as I hit the ground. The window slid open.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" he hissed.

"Let me in, I'm locked out."

I was forlorn. Pathetic. Standing in my front yard covered in mud, soaked from the rain, holding one shoe and clutching my purse to my chest with the dog going apeshit beside me.

To his credit, he let me in.

But I don't think I'm going to be going out to dinner with the girls again anytime soon.