Have You Seen Me Before?

HeartEyeMask, originally uploaded by carolWorldLeader.

It’s not too often that you can start off a conversation with the words, “Excuse me. Do I look familiar to you? Have you seen me before? Was I sitting over there?” but that’s exactly what happened to me one Friday at Z.

I have this friend, Andy, and, well, he’s very friendly. He also likes to drink. He doesn’t just drink; he drinks a lot. He and I have this bad habit of getting very very drunk whenever we get together. Interestingly enough, we’re both sort of what you might call “happy drunks-” we start to giggle and say silly things when we’re drunk, which in turn, makes us giggle (and drink) even more and, well, you can see where this is going. The words “intoxicated idiots” come to mind in a downward, yet giddy, spiral.

So, one day, I was at “happy hour” (!) with Andy over at Z. We started out ok, Andy suggested we get these potsticker-like appetizers and they were good, really they were. The trouble with appertizers and Andy though is that he can drink a lot faster than the waitress can bring more, so there we were, slurping down ten drinks for every potsticker in the place, getting very drunk (and very silly) at the same time.

All was well and good until I decided I had to go to the ladies room. Andy thought this was a good idea (mind you, he was so drunk, he was looking for a ladies room) and so we headed off into the sunset (well, actually the back of the restaurant) to try and find “the jane.” By this point, the restaurant had gotten quite crowded-it was a full house of cornbread eating fish taco scarfing Austin elite chowing down with their usual vigor. After our stint in the ladies room (he got lucky-there was a small “powder room” with just a few “heads” so he snuck in, used the stall next to me, and nobody was ever the wiser.) We faced the daunting task of trying to find our seats again.

Yes, snowflakes, it’s true. Andy got me so drunk, and um, I guess you could say “potsticker deprived,” dragged me to the ladies room, peed like a girl, and then we forgot where we were sitting. We were so drunk (but happy!) we couldn’t find our seats again. Not wanting to stiff Z with something approaching a $250 bar bill (not to mention give up on the seemingly endless supply of potstickers) we set out on a mission. We were going to find our seats, no matter what it took. We were going to look for them, hunt them down, and find them if it was the last thing we did. I can vaguely remember standing in the middle of the restaurant looking around, saying things like, “We’re we near the window? This window? Right?” and, “Crap! I think we sat there last week. That’s not it…”

We sat down for a spell with this nice couple visiting Austin from St. Louis (introduced ourselves too!) telling them, “We’re sorry. Austin really is a nice place. We just go so drunk we appear to have lost our table.” I’m sure they’ll visit Austin again, real soon now too. By now, a couple of waiters had offered to help, saying things like, “well, you weren’t in my section. Try going that way…” and pointing us to another dark corner of the Z (and, believe me, Z has some many dark corners to lurk in.)

It took a wise cracking waitress to really help us out though. She made our day by asking, “Weren’t you two seated at the bar?” Oh, the bar! The bar, oh yes, the bar! That makes so much sense now. I mean, where else would you put the likes of us? Doh! (It’s what you use to make cornbread, right?)

Until next time…