Blackout

I was meeting a friend for lunch. The weekend with Melissa was a bust. So glad that's over. Sorta been skipping out on this friend for months, so I thought I'd finally man up and chat with him. We were headed to the Yard House, patio, nice sunny Sunday. After he arrived and the waitress started paying attention (Mmmm... a tall, thready blonde with a sharp sense of humor and a cute swagger), we started in on the first of a good half-dozen pints, after only four in did we add on Jim Beam shots. This is good, I thought, as I was still murky from the weekend's hangover, a twelve pack of Amstel Light Melissa and I shared. Mostly me. The alcohol unhazed and loosened up everything. Dude and I teared through a stacked-up California roll, let the stories drip from our tongues, and sweet-talked every waitress we could (who all turned out to be lesbians; amazing how a guy can do that to a girl). I was feeling no pain and no worry. Why should I? Got a $50 in my wallet to pay the bill and 10 singles for a fresh pack of smokes. We got there at 2 and I remember checking the clock at some point and seeing we had been there for 4 hours. Dude had a basketball game to go to, but he chose to stick around. We had to step away from the patio to smoke and end up making our scene at the fire hydrant outside the movie theaters. Little Miss Thready Sharp-Tongued Blonde starts telling us that the giraffe we were hanging around actually got run over by some driver before. It's hot but it's breezy and I don't wear my hat in the shade, sorta counterintuitive I guess, but I like the way my bald head fee-










I remember waking up. It felt time to. Faint thunder rattled the pane, and I saw the clock read 4:13. Dark. Early. I'm laying face up in my bed, completely tucked in.
I am fully clothed.
My shoes are off.
I can only shift slightly but notice I'm laying on my wallet. Inside are a $10 dollar bill and an ATM receipt for $62.75 at 8:11pm.
Next to my bed is a fresh unopened pack of Camel Ultra Lights.
Inside the apartment everything that's supposed to be unplugged is.
In the bathroom my face is beet red, my jaw hurts, and I find the receipt for the cigarettes and a charge of $1.95 for Groceries from the corner gas station blocks from me, last oasis before returning home. Receipt says I was there 8:13 last night.
There's a can of energy drink on my dining room table.
I remember that there's tree pruning going on this morning on the street out front. Can't park out there, or you'll get towed. I put on a sweatshirt and head out the door. And it was locked.
And it was locked.
I step outside my building and realize I have no idea where I parked. Nor how I even got home. But the car's not where it's not supposed to be. I walk very awkwardly around and find Hermann expertly tucked behind an SUV next block over, within allowed parking signs, not needing permits, no tickets left on him.
Not a scratch of new damage either.
On my passenger side floor is a spent package of Strawberry Nilla Wafer Cakesters, pricemarked $0.99.


*shudder*