kyle's *ahem* 29th birthday party

For kyle’s *ahem* 29th birthday, we had a day o’fun planned. Starting with brunch at stanley’s. leigh and I joined kyle for some yummy brunch and then we went to the wine festival on wells street. We had wanted to stomp the grapes, but we got there too late. We bought our tickets and got our souvenir wine glass and set out to do our tastings. Ellen joined us too after awhile. Once we’d spent all of out tickets on the tastings – I think we got 10? We left the festival and headed over to a bar to meet devon. Devon, Patrick, her brother and a couple other people were sitting outside enjoying some drinks and then heading over to the U2 concert. We were stopping by to say hi and pick up kyle’s birthday headpiece. Devon did a wonderful job creating a fun pink hair clip for our birthday gal. she also supplied us with fun spongey numbers 2 & 9.

We then headed home for a rest & a shower and then met back up at kyle’s house for some pizza and more wine prior to going out. Alice, trish, megan, leigh, and another one of kyle’s friends – blair met up there and hung out on the roof deck with cocktails in hand. Somehow we convinced alice who was dressed cutely, but in flip flops to join us at the club. Kyle apparently stockpiles shoes b/c she happened to have a pair in alice’s size! Shoes changed, we all headed out the door for manor, a club in river north. Trish’s bf, john, has a friend that used to work there so he hooked us up for getting in without a cover or waiting in line.

At manor, we ordered a bottle of goose and some mixers. Alice stayed for a bit and then left. Katie, sonny and some of kyle’s other guy friends – johan and two others whose names I forget (maybe chad was one of them??) also joined the table. At one point, another bottle of the goose was brought to the table. Everyone was having fun and making fun of some of the heftier, should not be dancing on the tables girls that were at the next table over. Kyle was thoroughly drunk and having a great time! I was rather drunk from all of the wine so I nursed my vodka/cranberry and then moved on to water. Since the week before had been the incident with connor and the puking, I was trying to lay off the mixing and getting too drunk!

And then the bill came. And the fun stopped. Leigh and I had put our cards down b/c someone had to and then nobody would pony up the money to pay for the drinks/table. We both started to freak out because nobody was caring/paying attention and then Katie freaked out. Katie freaked out and went to talk to megan and told her she never would have come if she’d known it’d cost this much. Um, it was 60 bucks. And we were at a trendy club with table service… wtf did she expect?! I’d budgeted 100 bucks for the night. Anyways, she went on to basically say that she makes no money (true) and that I made more than her on unemployment. Uh, none of your business and if that is true, then so what, my unemployment covers half my monthly mortgage and that’s it… So that didn’t do anything but tick me off. She left without even giving any money! Then kyle’s friend (blair) gave me and leigh 40 each which was awesome. She ended up being the only one to give me any money that night. Oh, did I mention the total bill including tax/tip was 700 bucks?? 350 to me, 350 to leigh. Sweet. 350 for one f’ing drink… well, 310 (350 minus that 40). So then I got super upset, almost started crying and realized that while I had been talking to Katie, megan, trish and john, drunk kyle and leigh and those guys had left and gone to another bar. Great. So then the tears were about to come as I realized people weren’t forking over the money and I just had to leave. So I got home and wrote and email. Hmmm. One should generally not write emails at 3am drunk, but I think I wrote a very good one. Here is what I wrote:

hi all, i can say with a definite certainty that i officially resign from any and all future party planning. while i love each and everyone one of you and enjoy spending my time with you, i just can't afford it monetarily or friendship-wise. i don't want anyone mad at me... i don't want anyone to feel like they have to pay more than they feel they owe. i don't want anyone mad at me for what the table cost or the bottle service. i hate when people are mad or upset with me... i don't deal well with that. so here's the deal. pay me what you can. pay leigh what you can. it was a total of 700 bucks for 2 bottles. leigh and i split the bill evenly. i have no idea how many people were drinking. i wasn't paying attention to be perfectly honest. i'll tell you what i had. 1 vodka with cranberry and seven. after that i had ice/water. i made a conscious effort not to be too drunk as i am still mad at myself for how drunk i was last weekend. no matter, i still planned to share in the cost equally. i had budgeted up to a hundred bucks and i thought that was on the high side... so i guess at the end of the night, whatever is whatever. but just so you guys all know, i don't have 350 bucks for one drink or for everyone else's drinks. i haven't worked in almost a year and i'm living off my savings.... which won't last forever. not any of y'alls problem, just stating the facts. i know it's tough on everyone economically and i'm not saying i'm any less fortunate or more fortunate than the rest of you. i'm merely pointing out how i feel which is pretty freaking shitty right now.... so.... here it is: pay me what you can, i'll eat the rest and i'll see you guys in 2010 when i can once again spend money to go out. if you find a cheap happy hour or want to have drinks at a house party, count me in. otherwise, i'm out. i'll just be the lame-o hanging out at my house saving money. feel free to come watch a dvd with me.... i would like to say thank you blair, for giving both leigh and me some money ... it is much appreciated! so in closing... please don't take offense to this email... i needed to get a few things off my chest so there it all is... i hated leaving manor upset... i hated being upset at all. i am off to take an ambien and hopefully go to sleep so i can forget about all this... at least til the credit card bill comes.... night everyone.

Ultimately, I got 30 bucks in the mail from trish and 40 from sonny. Alice didn’t owe money b/c she didn’t drink. Kyle didn’t owe b/c it was her birthday. I’m still annoyed at Katie for her reaction and lack of paying and megan can be excused as I haven’t seen her lately and she’s been busy moving. Next time I see her, I’ll broach the subject. Which I hate. I hate the whole disastrous money thing as it has been known to ruin more than one of my friendships which I guess weren’t really friends in the first place if something so stupid could ruin it. But then again, that is one of the top reasons people get divorced! So anyways… what started as a fantastically fun day ended up going rather awry. And that one drink cost me 240 bucks.