Rejected title: Champagne and Skee-Ball
Rejected title 2: D&B Power Cards are useless when swiped betweeen one’s breasts
The past few days have been celebrations of my birthday. And today is the actual day! This is my last birthday when I can say, “I’m 29!” and mean it, because I plan to be 29 for the next decade or so. Maybe I’ll just start spreading the rumor that I’m 26 — think people will fall for that?
Shawn coined the “Birthday Hanukkah” phrase. I won’t say what exactly started it two days ago, but yesterday, we went to Dave & Buster’s, where we had the most incredible time. Shawn bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate my birthday, and we took the bottle and our glasses over to the skee-ball machines, where our process of getting sloshed was well underway.
We were musing how perfect a moment that was — champagne and skee-ball — just because it’s one of our many unique memories that was in the making at that time. Trying to balance the champagne glasses, the bounty of tickets that we were winning, the balls and ourselves as well was just a Kodak moment of hilarity.
The fun was just neverending, and so was the alcohol. 🙂 I was pretty damn trashed within a half hour of being there (two double shots of chocolate cake, half a bottle of champagne, a mudslide and a cosmpolitan kind of has that effect on you!), and I was sitting at Car No. 8 on the Daytona game when I misplaced my D&B Gold Card. I had just received 50 bonus tokens for my birthday, and Shawn had charged my card with another boatload of credits. Lo and behold, with 174 credits remaining, I remembered shoving the card under my knee when the game started, but for those of you who play the Daytona, you know that your seat practically rides around the entire Midway. Hence, I went into a panic because my card was missing.
Several minutes of searching, along with two D&B workers who ripped apart the machine to the best of their abilities, left me cardless for a spell. Then the manager brought over a brand-new card, charged with 150 credits. Shawn decided to play the game for awhile, and suddenly, it hit me. I looked down my shirt, and there was my card, where I’d stuck it for safekeeping. My drunken ass had totally forgotten about that! I never wear pockets, and I didn’t feel like shoving the damn thing into my purse or my wallet, so I went for a place where nobody is going lately. 😉 Gaah!
So we had a blast with the extra credits. Got portraits and photos done of us. We were bummed because the photo-morphing machine was out of order — we wanted to see what our kids would look like. Oh well! Maybe next time, now that I have Shawn hooked on the excitement of that place. D&B’s is Chuck E. Cheese for grownups … only with too damn many kids! We played most of the games and had a terrific time in this theater game where you’re supposed to be saving the earth or something. Who knows, but it had awesome music playing! 😉
Food was great, company was great and the experience was great. After dinner, the waiters came over and sang to me and gave me ice cream. 🙂 Beautifull!
We parted ways about seven hours after we started out, and after some cajoling from Shawn (as well as my glasses breaking for the third and final time), I decided to go to his place, and from there, we went to Nation, where we partied like it was 1999.
I still haven’t slept. I left his place around 4:30 a.m., and I drove for awhile before stopping in the park (the one with the gazebo, the little lake, the fountains and the streetlights shining into the water) to watch the sun rise. I went home to scrub my butt, and I went out again. Got a handful of groceries and rode all over Arlington and Alexandria before arriving home a few moments ago.
On my way out, Shawn gave me one of my gifts (the rest are coming Tuesday or Wednesday; hence the Hanukkah), which I fell in love with immediately. It’s a checkbook cover with Jon Bon Jovi barely clad on it. Shawn even had it personalized for me, which just rocked all that much more! I would’ve loved it even if I weren’t high as a kite!!!
At any rate, it was fabulous to have a fun, free day without the usual job and life pressures kicking my ass. Definitely one of the best birthdays ever!
Tonight, Shan and I are doing dinner, a movie and dessert. I have to get my ass in bed for awhile so that I am not a grumpy mess by that time. I’ve smoked two full packs of cigarettes since this time yesterday, and I am fucking wired! And I know my phone’s gonna be ringing with well-wishers today, so I hate to even go to sleep when I know I’ll have to wake up and pretend like I didn’t get blazed last night and pull a subsequent all-nighter. 🙂 I won’t mind though — I’m still feelin’ pretty damn good!