Monday, February 25, 2008

Drinking Gin

I adore the Cheshire Kitty. All circles have one.

You know the type: mischievous grin, sneaky intentions, always up to something (that you desperately hope to be a part of). You kind of wish you could be her, if only for a few days. My Cheshire Kitty is a midwestern badass with a future career in criminal justice and a penchant for inappropriate sexual innuendo. She drinks SoCo and lime, beats the boys at Guitar Hero, and knows how to properly handle a gun. She's in the kind of relationship that gives me hope -- hope that not all couples are simpering idiots; hope that it is indeed possible to escape the stereotype in favor of becoming (dare I say it?) fun. She's beautiful, but she could kick your ass in a DC minute. She's absolutely delightful.

Friday night saw me and the girls out to dinner at Zaytinya, which is ridiculously delicious. And after appetizers, god-knows-how-many shared mezzes, desserts, AND booze, I don't even look at the bill, I just sign blindly. Because it's worth it, and besides -- as a starving student, it'd only whip me into a spiral of buyers' remorse, which can't be good for my overall wellbeing. The other girls in the ladies' room, Cheshire Kitty leans over the table and, in our sangria-induced haze, drops a bomb:

"He said I'm 'not safe to marry.' Last night as we were falling asleep."

Cue the girls returning to the table, as I'm about to ask what on earth that could mean; cue Cheshire Kitty's abrupt hush. And not another word about it until the next night, when I found myself being ushered off to McFadden's, the kind of tool-frequented college saloon that I abhor -- you know, a place that charges $20 for a mediocre open bar, operates a mechanical bull for drunken sorority girls in tube tops carrying Louis Vuitton, and doesn't end a single evening without at least one instance of the popped-collared and fake-ID'd masses singing "Sweet Caroline" at the top of their lungs. With their eyes closed, no less. McFadden's is, undeniably, the seventh circle of hell.

And yet there I was, slugging back generic G&Ts while Cheshire Kitty pretended not to be troubled by the fact that her boy was spending the entire night getting sloshed upstairs with his friends. I still haven't heard the full story.

It's amazing how two people can be separated by just one floor, and at the same time, seem so goddamned far apart.

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