Cockblocked by Lemon Drops

I've survived my first night out drinking and clubbing in over a decade. I guess that cherry had re-grown and I popped it tonight. We started out at the bride's house, and I sucked down a rum and diet Pepsi, and realized I never knew how good that stuff tasted. Hello, ABC store tomorrow. And then, because we are all thirty something women living in the suburbs of somewhere, we piled into a Honda minivan and cruised off for the big city lights, blasting Lil Wayne and other dumb shit and took a side trip through Creighton Court because the driver's GPS is set to avoid highways or something. I knew where we were on the approach and my asshole immediately tightened up, because this is not the place to be rolling through on a Saturday night, much less when the economy is bad. I don't like going up in the projects during the daylight hours, and no, I'm not telling why I would have reason to be going up in the projects of Richmond. Everyone else in the van thought it was funny that we were cruising through the hood, and I'm just sitting quietly thinking, don't stop this fucking van for anything. Keep moving. Keep moving.

Pizza at this trendy little place downtown that does pizza stuff and martini specialities, like every other trendy little place, because martinis are back in. Mad Men and all. Personally, I don't like martinis. I don't like them wet, dry, clean, dirty, nothing. I hate olives, I think they are evil and I generally associate martinis with olives, and thus a martini will never cross through these lips. I'd rather get a nose full of fumunda than a nose full of olives. And that's bad. It's also the dumbest shit you'll probably read all day, too. I sucked down two more rum and cokes, because it was working for me and I didn't want to be the person to barf in the minivan by mixing up her liquor, beer and wine.

Finally, off to a bar. Since we've all grown up, it's Shockoe Slip instead of Shockoe Bottom. I had my share of the Bottom in my twenties, anyway, and I'm still a little sore about my car getting towed a few years ago whilst at a retirement luncheon at the way overpriced and super-way overrated pizza place down there. Okay, I'm really sore about that whole car towing incident, because the no-parking sign had blown over, and I was pretty fucking sure I had parked legally and should have insisted on going to court and fighting the whole thing. But I didn't. So we slide up in the trendy Irish bar, and I've never been to this place before. All I know about this place is that there used to be a salon right next door that did Brazilians. Brazilian waxing, that is. Not Brazilian people. Because I have a nose for knowing who does Brazilians, and I totally enjoyed the entire vajazzling conversation we had tonight and all the girlfriends whipping out their cell phones to Google vajazzling and then passing the phones around so that we could look at the pictures and discuss how that whole thing works.

I sucked down yet another rum and coke, but this one didn't taste that good and I know they used the bottom shelf shit. It was also not maintaining the pleasant buzz I had earlier when I was emailing a homeslice of mine to discuss conquesting and stuff. Since I was the only member of this party who smokes on the regular, and because this place is non-smoking (you suck!), I had to go out on the deck to get my puff on. I'm standing on the deck by myself, since I'm 36 + 1, I'm know I'm old enough to be able to go smoke outside without dragging a girlfriend along with me. I'll just stand there and smoke and look pretty, because I know I can do that.

I'm standing there, smoking, feeling my buzz slip away from me because of this shitty watered down rum I just overpaid for, and I see him. I saw him when he walked by me, but that can't be. No, it can't be. But wait, he looked at me. It is. Oh my god, that's my daycare owner's son. Holy shit. We waved and he walked over to give me a hug. Hmmm, this is really strange. The daycare owner, whom I also call the daycare Nazi, has a son who is about ten years younger than me. She's grooming him and his sister to take over both of her daycares, so this guy has been working as the administrator at our daycare since he graduated from college, and worked there before that on all of his summer breaks.

He lives in my neighborhood, which I discovered one evening when I was driving home and saw him out jogging. It must have been about 98 degrees outside, hot as fuck. As I approached him in my car, I didn't notice anything but this man's body. Men with tans who jog without shirts on, and have a six pack, yeah, I tend to notice them. I notice them even more when they glisten with sweat and pheromones. I slowed down ever so slightly, because I had to get my ogle on. I ogled, thought some really obscene thoughts, and then realized right after I passed him, oh my god, that's Mr. So-and-So [insert his first name here]. All of the daycare employees go by Miss So-and-So, and this guy is Mr. So-and-So. As soon as I realized it was Mr. So-and-So, I immediately felt like a complete lecher, well, just because I did. It just felt kind of wrong to think such raunchy thoughts about the daycare owner's son, even though he was well over the legal age. But then I saw him running again the next week, and the same raunchy thoughts entered into my brain, but I didn't feel quite so guilty that time.

So this is what I'm picturing when he's standing next to me talking to me out on the deck of this trendy Irish pub that's way overpriced and watered down. I'm thinking, I've seen you without your shirt on. Sweaty. We made small talk about daycare, my separation, his friends, my friends, and something was odd about this encounter. Obviously because it's not taking place in the daycare, but there's something more. It was loud on the deck, but not so loud that we needed to be standing that close to each other. There was something in the way he was looking at me, and something in the way I was looking at him. Could this be a little electricity flowing between us? Okay, that's weird, because he's much younger than me and I've seen some of his girlfriends. And they don't look like me. Usually, we like one type of person. Personally, I like men with darker hair. I don't know why; I just do. Every once in a while (before I got married, I should add), I'd been known to mix it up with a blond, but none of the blond men ever worked out, even though the strangeness of dating a tow-headed man was exotic enough to make it even more spicy. But I digress. So he and I are standing there on the deck, making small talk, and I'm trying to process what this is between us. I'm pretty sure there was some electricity there, because my buzz was wearing off and I don't think him standing this close to me and studying me that intensely was me having half a buzz at this point. And then I think, could this be the beginnings of a hook up? At this point I was doing some fast thinking of how I could take this from small talk to shit talk. Some woman came out onto the deck and motioned to him and he waved her off. Oh, that's strange. This could be. But it feels so dirty with him being the daycare owner's son and all. Dirty but good dirty. Dirty like I'm ready to grab hold of his spiky hair and do stuff.

But then, one of the girlfriends comes out and announces we've got shots, and we need to do them together for the bride. WHAT? Are you fucking kidding me? I looked at her, and this woman doesn't know me, so she doesn't know the look. The look of 'I do not want to walk away from this man to do some shot and lose this opportunity of what might just be a little electricity and a whole lot of me thinking dirty stuff'. I asked if she could just bring the shot out on the deck to me. Nope, we have to do the shot together. Goddammit and motherfucker. Are you kidding me? But this night isn't about me trying to get laid, it's about the bride saying goodbye to all of this foolishness that I've just entered into again. I looked at Mr. So-and-So, and just kind of shrugged, and said, "Lemon Drops. Gotta go." And that was that. We did the shot after we all toasted and did the drinking-girl scream, and that shot was watered down, too. I made a mental note to show up completely trashed the next time I frequent this bar, and just sip water, enjoy the scenery and talk a little shit. This is too much money to pay for watered down drinks and shots.

12:20am and we've made out way out of the trendy Irish pub to the club one block up, because we still need to drop it like it's hot and all. I'm completely sober at this point, but am secretly pleased that these 36 year old legs + 1 that hurt like hell from putting together a complete cheerleading dance routine two nights prior can still get low in a pair of four inch wedge heels. As for Mr. So-and-So, the electricity has been lost and I doubt very seriously I'll be able to recreate it on Monday morning at daycare when I drop the children off. Goddammit again.

The bride had fun and I'm glad I didn't get completely ripped and puke in the minivan. As for my hook up that wasn't, well, I guess being cockblocked by Lemon Drops happens. It was an almost kind of night.