"I'm spinning round the room in awe" ryan adams

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

“Everybody say ‘cougar!’”

Last Saturday morning, Meredith, Amy and I continued our slumber on the sand of Dewey Beach. It was a great few hours of laziness…chatting, napping, reading, and making fun of people. Ew, these nasty guys, or more appropriately, old men, set up their blankets in front of us, looked back at us, then said, “picking your spot on the beach is just like when you chose your cabin – it’s all about the view.” Then they picked up their gear and moved ten feet behind us and continued to ogle and make comments for the rest of the afternoon. Ew.

We went into the water and of course I acted like a five year old girl afraid of the water and not going any deeper than my knees. I was quite content with my depth though. Unfortunately Meredith did not fare so well with the waves. We called it quits on the beach and vacated to the pool. Oh, and also the entire time Amy kept confusing Meredith and me. She shortens our names to Mir and Mer and needless to say, that often times get blurred into one. And somehow my nickname of “ho face” spawned, so I also responded to that.

After soaking up some rays and waves we decided we needed money and food, so we drove up to Rehoboth, and while driving my ears were blessed with Dane Cook. It was the first time I heard his routine and I think I laughed so hard I cried. Naturally we caused a ruckus in the grocery store and it seemed like the scene in Half Baked where they grabbed everything in sight. While Amy was talking to Koesser, we got lost in the parking lot and I realized that apparently I didn’t graduate from Sunscreen 101. I had red splotches all over my legs!

We unloaded our snacks in our room and headed down to the Starboard to meet the guys: Koesser, Dougie, and Parker. I gave Amy a thumbs up and Meredith and I scoped out the credit cards on the wall. The six of us broke the ice at the outside bar, beers in hand and the sun still shining above. Yay hometown brew of Dogfish Head. In addition to not being able to apply sunscreen correctly, I also can’t walk. I must have tripped at least a dozen times over the weekend. My latest tumble resulted in a cut foot. I didn’t realize that my foot was bleeding until at the bar, but that’s ok because a Scooby Doo bandaid saved the day. One of the guys friends flipped over the railing and subsequently cut off. We all had just met (or re-met) and we all hit it off famously…an interesting night was sure to be in store.

The girls know how to do things right, so naturally our hotel room fridge was stocked. We invited the guys back to our place, where pregaming ensued. Sprawling across two beds, mixed drinks in hands, I think we all lost our minds and laughed till it hurt. Dougie saved the day by scampering out and getting ice and a cork screw. Wine…soco & lime…smirnoffs…they all lead to jumping on beds. Parker and I practically made it a sport. I can’t even remember what conversations we had, but we did master the word “poontastic” and thought of several situations in which the word would and would not be appropriate. Marla and Ed (and Peyton) also joined in the festivities. Peyton wanted to smear hair product all over the window, as any well-reared DC girl should do. After almost all the booze was gone and the Soco was kicked, we decided to break and get ready for the night, which included more boozing and socializing, just at another location.

Amy, Meredith, and I threw our clothes all around and decided that Amy was the most “WYFM?” of all, but Meredith and I came in close behind. The Southwinds was right above Grottos, the natural choice for dinner and drinks. We were all slightly hurting though we still ordered pitchers of Yuengling and two veggie pizzas (thanks, guys!). Parker was missing and we think he got caught in a trap at another bar. Cougar traps are all around Dewey. Simply put, cougars are older women who prowl on younger men. Amy and Chris were visiting in July when we found a guide to Dewey Beach, which included cougars – so naturally on this outing, we went cougar hunting. The boys gave our waitress a semi-hard time, and we met another waitress from Louisiana who found refuge from the hurricane in Delaware. So random the stories people have if you just ask.

We lost Parker to another bachelorette party and we headed up to the Rusty, all of us holding hands. We may lose one another. Koesser got us drinks and we headed to the dance floor to scope out the crowd. We had some drama on the upper level, but it was all entertaining in hindsight. How is it that the guys we know don’t take risks and over analyze implications? We spotted cougars on the prowl and Amy documented them in action. Koesser and Dougie took a picture with two females, one way older. Amy took the picture and said, “everyone say ‘cougar!’”. I think Meredith and I almost choked, Dougie’s mouth fell open, the cougar got pissy, and Koeeser said, “’cougar…?’ what does that mean?!” As if he had no idea… It was classic and a great Amy-moment.

On that note, Amy, Mer, and I joined the crowd and dance and sung along to an awful cover band (Kristen & the Noise). We were surrounded by creepy guys, all of who wore the same outfit: khaki cargo shorts and a blue collared crew shirt. Individually we all tried to fix the drama, then decided to get more drinks instead. We found the jello shot girl and brought her over to the guys so that they could buy us and the cougar shots. So heinous of us. There was a super hot guy from Grottos who was dancing near us, so I tell Amy how hot he is. So she gets his attention!! Me = mortified. I tried to escape, but I couldn’t, so I turn and say hi, he skakes my hand, and I think I turn extremely red. Dougie saved us all so we danced with him for the rest of night and made up our own words to Mr. Brightside.

At last call, we couldn’t find Koesser or Parker, so Amy, Meredith, Doug, and I left without them. Dougie decided to stay in our room for the night since Amy and Meredith were taking him back to MD. He didn’t have a key to his old room, so we sweet talked the hotel lady into letting us into his room. Well, not so easily. I tried to coherently get a key from the lady, but since I am not a Koesser or a Parker, she wasn’t having it. Doug was faced, but somehow got a key by telling her (Koesser’s first name is Doug as well) that the guy (Parker) who booked the room must have put the reservation under his former name, and that he is going through a messy divorce. WHAT!??!?!? Somehow, that worked and we all got into the mold infested room. No, seriously, there was mold everywhere and it was gross. So grab Doug’s stuff, a shower cap, and other fun goodies, and headed down the block back to our hotel room, taking silly pictures en route.

Doug and Meredith were walking ahead of Amy and me. When we got to our hotel, they went up to our room as Amy and I looked at pictures on the digital. We see a guy in a Red Sox hat singing to himself, so I think we smiled, waved, and cheered him on. Bad idea. He comes over and we take a picture of the three of us together…which could have also been the “last picture taken alive” photo that they flash on news reports. He tells us that he is from Silver Spring, MD and graduated from Good Counsel High School. How fucking small is this world? He then invites us to a party in a “six million dollar home”, so naturally our drunk asses our intrigued.

During the walk over, mystery guy tells us that he worked in the Secret Service (from now on, he will be called Secret Service Agent or SSA for short) but had to get out of it because his wife did too and that there was super secret secret service drama and lives were at stake. He also has three kids. Halfway there we didn’t think that this was a good idea, but what could we do? As we walk up to the huge house, he points out his car, with the special SSA sticker in the corner. I think that was code for, “I could kill you and dump your bodies in a place never to be discovered if you run away.” We get to the “party” and everyone was crashed on the floor. It was around 3 am, so we didn’t blame them. There were handful of people still up and we were frightened, but made the best of it. I don’t even think I can talk about it. But SS kept playing a song (Amy, what was it?!?!). Since they were from around DC and the owner of the house was associated with Universal music, we tried to pimp out LDE. As Amy was looking for a pen, we both noticed that the nice, bubbly girl we were speaking with had a prosthetic leg. Ok, we aren’t mean people, and that is very unfortunate, but taking the circumstances that we found ourselves in, it was hilarious. I think we realized it at the same time because Amy said, “Miranda…” and I was like, “no, Amy, I know…” and she said, “no, but…” and I replied, “oh I know…” And maybe you just had to be there, but the others probably thought we were talking about the pen, but instead we were making sure that we were both well away of the situation around us. And on that note, we peaced out. SSA decided to walk with us home. As we are talking about his kids and sports, we look up and see a cop. Amy and I were fine, then SSA was heading the other direction. WHAT!?

So as we are trying to figure out why this is our lives, we enter our room and see Meredith sprawled out on one bed and Doug, the naked Asian guy, sprawled out on another (in his and Mer’s defense, he wasn’t naked, just in boxers, though we couldn’t tell). What were we to do? So we stole the old hotel room key back from Doug and headed back over to the moldy hotel. This would have been fine and dandy if Koesser and Parker weren’t also staying in that same room. And who hadn’t left the Rudder. Which means they are either macking it with some girls in the room, or macking it elsewhere and will come back in the morning. Both situations are equally as embarrassing. So we bit the bullet and trudged over to the hotel as it’s nearing 4 am. Lucky break, the boys weren’t back.

We changed into our pajamas and grab the bed closest to the door and set the alarm for 9:30 am, hoping that if they have to leave by 11, we can leave before they get back and no one will ever know. I had a killer headache so I searched the room for any type of pain relief. Instead I found big boy condoms. Amy and I were doubled over in laughter at the magnums. Some cougar must be getting lucky. The guys returned sometime before our alarm went off. Amy and I sat in bed hoping that the incessant knocking would go away. It didn’t. They didn’t seem too phased, probably because the cougars wore them out – rawr! Parker had to do the Walk of Shame three times, once back to the hotel, then back to where he was at since he left his cell or wallet there, then back to the hotel. Classy!

Amy and I got dressed, which was the same outfits as Saturday night, which aren’t really our Sunday best. Our Walk of Shame was going to be great, even though we just slept with each other. The guys saved us and we got the Ride of Pride as they headed out to the Redskins game. We get upstairs and inform Doug and Meredith on how we almost died and how we didn’t ditch them. Oh yeah, and Amy’s cell phone died so there was no communication to anyone at all even if we did get into real danger.

Instead of napping, we all hit the beach. Amy, Mer, and Doug hit the waves (Meredith won this time) as Terry and I talked about the previous night’s adventures. We decided to fill the afternoon up by walking to Rehoboth for lunch. We made Doug honorary Cougar bait. Greasy food is great when you are tired and hurting – yay Nicabolis. Poor Doug nearly passed out. He tired to order and it took him five minutes to just say “give me that.” We walked back, cleaned up, packed up, and said our goodbyes.

I could have just gone back to MD with Amy, and she offered. But I had to pick up Dan at Marissa’s then back to Jersey City. Dan and I listened to Dane Cook on the way home and it was fabulous. I love having my go go cabrio, it makes me portable.