The Birthday – part deux

The night before my birthday, the BF had a party to attend, so we dressed up and decided to cab it to the club so that we could both drink freely. (Retrospectively, not such a great idea. The imminent threat of having to drive is what usually keeps us in check.)

Prior to arriving at the club, he was drinking his signature Jack on the rocks, and I was drinking one of my favorites – Maker’s rocks (it used to be Maker’s neat, but I got tired of getting weird looks from bartenders, and suggestions of possible mixers. My famous line: “just put it in a glass and give it to me.”).

You might think we’re professionals, but, warning! The rookie move is a-comin’.

We arrived at the party, and had a few rounds before the BF got the bright idea that he should order a bottle of champagne to celebrate my birthday.

Now . . . I love him tremendously for this gesture. I never look a gift horse in the mouth, I am very appreciative, and Lord knows I never want to discourage him from doing nice things, however, I started having Thanksgiving flashbacks.

I spend Thanksgiving with my friends Jen and Fletch every year, and they have a beautiful home, and Jen always provides a spectacular spread, which includes just about every kind of liquor that you could imagine. Although we spend the night, I typically contain my consumption to wine (because I know better), while the BF runs the gamut and participates in each type of alcohol that the Lancaster-Fletchers store in their beautiful, well-decorated home. The day after Thanksgiving last year (incidentally one of our anniversaries [we have two]) was spent nursing his queasiness and mind-blowing hangover due to an innocent champagne toast that was offered between courses of rare scotch.

It didn’t help matters that the four of us went to lunch to get some food in his system and he ordered a salad nicoise. I’m getting sick just thinking about it.

The champagne was a bad idea on Thanksgiving, and an equally bad idea on the eve of my birthday.

The second that the bottle of Veuve was presented, I knew the night had shifted from a birthday celebration to an imminent babysitting session. I tried to share that champagne with everyone in sight, just to keep him from drinking any more than was necessary (even though, let’s face it . . . anything more than one sip would have been overkill).

How drunk was he, you ask? Well, to give you an idea, at some point — roughly at 4:30 am, after I finally fell asleep in the overly-fluffy hotel bed, I heard knocking at the door. I ignored it. The knocking persisted. I rolled over, annoyed, and realized that the BF was not in bed. Where was he? Outside in the hallway, knocking on the door. I opened the door to let him in and he went directly to bed and began snoring without answering my immediate questions, the most important of which was “why were you in the hallway in your underwear?”

My assumption is that he went looking for the bathroom, and ended up in the hall. I was only hoping that he hadn’t peed in the linen closet, and if he had, that it wasn’t caught on camera.

He woke up the next day feeling like shit, and had no recollection of the hallway incident. He thought it was a dream. It was a dream, alright.

Not to dwell on this too much, but let’s just say that my birthday was an anniversary repeat — with potentially a worse hangover and the lovely addition of some sort of frantic emergency associated with his damned project (I could dedicate an entire post to that, but really? I don’t want to).

Except this time, we actually managed to have dinner (as opposed to our anniversary dinner, which consisted of a badly-picked-at Epic Burger combo).

I made reservations for us at Geoffrey’s in Malibu, which has an amazing view especially at sunset, which distracted my attention from the BF, who was still a little green around the gills.

So, what I’ve learned from this? The next special occasion? No champagne, child-proof locks on the door, and the phone gets shut down (because it isn’t like my relatives have any better sense than to call me at the crack of dawn to wish me a happy birthday. I’m in LA and it’s 6:00 am. I love you, but seriously? Pound sand!)

I was due to make the trek back to Chicago the next day. I wasn’t really ready to leave LA. Nine days isn’t really enough time. The Universe heard me.

Stay tuned for customer service issues in the next installment . . .