The Worst Weekend of My Life

Okay, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but actually, I'm not.  Last weekend sucked my life.  Seriously.

Let me start at the beginning, which actually was really good, and didn't really allow me to predict how bad the rest of the weekend would be.

On Friday night, I learned that my friend Katie's friends Kyle and Samantha were meeting up in Denver in order to celebrate what is apparently famously known as "Fake Patty's."  I would liken it to Jamestown's yearly "Running of the Green," except that in Denver, there's a 4-hour parade and no one really runs through the streets getting excessively intoxicated.  Instead, they just hang out at bars and get excessively intoxicated.  Because they're cool kids, they invited me to join them.

Now, the only problem with their plan, which wasn't exactly a problem, was that they wanted to start drinking at 7:00 am.  Considering I've never had a drink before noon in my life, to start drinking that early would probably kill me.  Instead, I agreed to meet them at 9:00 am, which also ended up being a problem...  More on that to come.

So Friday night, the boy and I headed to Denver with a friend and her friends in order to go clubbing.  Please note that Raissa had, until then, never really been clubbing before, and she was a little nervous about it.  I mean... I hate dancing.  Unless I'm drunk.  And it's a part of "cultured" society that I've never experienced, so I wasn't sure what exactly to expect.  It ended up being a fine experience overall, although not something that I'd like to do all the time.  As I tell people here: I prefer trashy small-town bars.  

We were at the bar until about 2:00, and didn't get home until 2:30.  I did have a few drinks while we were out.  Nothing excessive, just enough to make me comfortable dancing in front of people who I know.  By the time I had wound down and actually could sleep, it was probably 4:00 am.  Needless to say, I probably wouldn't make it back to Denver before 9:00 am.  Instead, I got up at about 9:00, and after weighing my options, decided to take the bus to Denver.  Pasha and I had plans to see CU's most recent opera production, Don Giovanni, on both Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 2:00.  In order for me to have a few drinks while in Denver, but still make it to Boulder in one piece, the bus would be smartest.

I arrived in Denver shortly after noon, and, after a bit of searching, I found Kyle and Sam.  Drunk.  I was way behind, but wasn't really ready to play catch-up.  After having lunch, I began to drink with them.  We spent some time in the Sports Column, where they totally randomly ran into the same random guys who they had been drinking with in that bar the year before.  The guys kept buying beer, and we kept drinking it. I had 3 beers-ish and one shot before we had to leave when one of our party was kicked out.  I was still feeling fine when we landed at The Fainting Goat, but by the time we left I had had 2 long island teas and was feeling gooood, if you get me. 

Kyle and Sam dropped me at Union Station a little before 6:00.  After wandering around for quite some time, I finally found my gate.  The bus was scheduled to leave at 6:02.  I looked down at 6:00 and realized that I had no keys, which also had my bus pass attached.  I searched through my purse and pockets at least 8 times, but had no luck finding them.  I had no idea if I had left them on the bus on my way down or if I had lost them somewhere in downtown Denver.  I immediately started freaking out.  If I missed that bus, then I might miss the opera, for which Pasha had bought the tickets.  In addition to really wanting to see the show, I didn't want it to have been a waste of his money.  

After thinking for five seconds, I realized if I had lost my keys that meant that I couldn't get into my car.  My only spare keys were in my house, which I was locked out of because Kenny was in the opera and was already in Boulder.  Then, I realized that I had no cash and therefore no way to get onto a bus if there was another one coming that would get me to Boulder on time.  And even if I could get cash, it would be a $20 bill and bus drivers don't dispense change.  Needless to say, I was freaking out and had no solution.  And was tired.  And was tipsy.  All of these things together resulted in tears.  Lots of them.  

I called Pasha to see if he had an easy solution to my problem.  Being the nice guy that he is, he called RTD Lost and Found and learned that if I had left my keys on the bus, I couldn't find out until Monday because it was presently Saturday and they don't catalog lost and found from the weekends until Monday afternoon.  So I was still freaking out.

I saw a cute old security guard who I approached and asked for advice.  It was at about this time that my phone started telling me that it would die at any moment.  I said to the nice man, "Excuse me?  Could you possibly help me?"  (Keep in mind that I was still crying.)  He said, "I can try."  I said, "Okay, here's my problem.  I think I left my keys on an earlier bus, and I now have to get to Boulder.  I have no cash and have a time limit.  I can't find an ATM, and even if I find an ATM, I have no way to get change."  And started crying even harder.  He pointed me toward and ATM and suggested I ask the Amtrak man to give me change, considering my situation.  He also told me to stop crying.  I followed half of his advice.  Not the crying part.

After finding an ATM and getting change from the Amtrak man, I found the next bus to Boulder, which left at 6:36.  Pasha and I had called back and forth 4 or 5 times, trying to find the fastest and most economical way to Boulder from Broomfield.  I was still crying when the bus showed up.  I asked the driver what the fare was, and successfully boarded.  And cried the whole way to Broomfield, where Pasha picked me up and very kindly produced a meal for me.  We made it to Boulder with 5 minutes to spare, and enjoyed Giovanni mucho.  That is, I enjoyed what I saw of it; I probably slept through half.

After the show was over and we had congratulated the performers, we headed to a house party.  I had had enough to drink in the afternoon, and refrained from drinking that night, but still didn't get home until 2:30 am.  If you include the time change, it was more like 3:30 am.  I had to be in Denver by 10:00 the next morning to sing for a church choir.  And I couldn't skip because they were paying me.  In short, I got about 5 hours asleep total.  Again. 

And slept through about half of the opera on Sunday afternoon.  Again.  And went to an after-party.  Again.  And had nothing to drink.  Again.  It was snowing on Sunday, and I had worn heels.  There was a secret back entrance to the house that consisted of 12 or so wooden stairs.  When it came to be time to leave, I offered to give two unsighted individuals a ride to the bus station, since I was dropping Pasha there, anyway.  I didn't want them to go down the crazy secret stairs, so offered to take my car around to the front of the house to pick them up.  I left out the back door alone and began the descent.  As soon as I hit the first step, my heel slipped on the ice, and I slid down the remainder of them, with my left leg tucked under me.  My shin hit every step on the way down, and when I finally reached the bottom, I had lost one shoe, my pants were soaked, and I could hardly place all of my weight on my left leg without assistance from any nearby sturdy object.

Thankfully, no one saw.  I successfully made it to the bus station, where I realized I didn't have my cell phone.  I assumed that it had fallen out of my pocket during my tumble down the stairs, and headed all the way back to the party location.  There, I found my cell phone on the ground.  Once I finally got to driving home, I texted Kenny to see if he was still home.  He and I had been keeping in good touch in order to know whether to leave the door locked or unlocked, or where they key had been hidden, etc.  After the opera, he had gone home to shower and I assumed he'd know to leave the door unlocked for me.

He didn't.  He had assumed that I would be at the party all night, and I didn't tell him otherwise, so I was locked out and had nowhere to go.  Except to Pasha's.  Which wouldn't have been so bad except that I had homework to do, but it was locked in my house, along with my computer and more comfortable clothes.  I had planned to do homework, laundry, and clean my bathroom, and now I couldn't do any of it.

By the time I got to Pasha's house, he wasn't home yet, and I waited in my car for 5 or 10 minutes.  I was sad.  And tired.  And frustrated.  So when he arrived, we went in, and the combination of frustration, exhaustion, and overwhelmed-ness led me to cry.  For over an hour.  Without stopping.  I ended up falling asleep in all of my clothes until 6:00 am, when I had to drive home, take a shower, do homework, and get to school.

All that was left was for me to hope like hell that the Regional Transportation District (RTD) had my keys.  When a person calls RTD, they get a message that tells them something like this, "If you've lost something on a Denver bus route, call this number.  If you've lost something on a Boulder bus route, call this number."  Okay, well, the bus I took to Denver sounded a lot to me like a Denver bus route.  So between the hours of noon (since I couldn't call until then) and 3:30 pm, I called the Denver RTD Lost & Found a minimum of 30 times, and No. One. Answered.  EVER.  I was very frustrated.

Finally, at 3:30 pm, I reached a live person.  Me: "Hi, I think I left my keys on a bus on Saturday."  Him: "Sure, what bus?"  Me: "The L between Broomfield and Denver."  Him: "That's a Boulder route, so you should call the Boulder number."  Me: "Really?  Even though I took it to Denver?"  Him: "Yes."  Me: "Okay. thanks."  

To this day, I don't understand why my keys would be at the Boulder station, but I don't care.  If they would be there, it would save me a trip to Denver to get the keys.  So I called Boulder.  "Hi, I think I left my keys on a bus on Saturday."  He asked me to describe them, I did, and he had them!  I heard the "Hallelujah Chorus" from The Messiah in my head and told him I'd be right there.

End story, right?  Wrong.

The Boulder RTD office is Downtown.  On a Monday afternoon, it's impossible to park downtown without paying, which I expected, so whatever.  I drove there while talking to Jettie, found a spot, got out, walked to the parking meter, put my money in, and went back to my car to put the receipt into my window.  While I was there, I crawled into the backseat to get my wallet out of my backpack, in case they wanted me to prove that I was me.  I locked the doors and walked away, still talking to Jettie.

Ten feet later, I let out an expletive, and started walking back to my car.  Sure enough, there were both of my spare keys in the backseat next to my backpack.  Locked in.  Because I'm that smart.  Thank goodness that I was downtown to get my keys, because the last thing I wanted to do was pay a locksmith.

In the end, it all worked out, I guess.  The process of getting it to work out was not fun...  Let's hope I start using my brain more efficiently. And SOON!  So that I no longer have such awful weekends!