The Ballad of the Non-Exclusive Nightclub

This is how it goes, every single time. Sing it with me folks.

You will set out with your close group of friends. Some of them will be from out of town. They will think this is all very glamorous. You will not correct them. You will drink cheap wine before you leave the warm up venue, usually someone’s apartment. The wine will help. As will the company, for they are always fabulous. And always much funnier than you remember. You will even catch yourself saying “You’re so invited to my next birthday. I forgot how much fun you were!” And then you will apologize profusely with “Uh, that so didn’t come out the way I meant it to.” The cab driver will laugh at you. If he bothers to get off of his cell phone. Which, he won’t.

There will be a line-up. It is a non-exclusive club, after all, and everyone is in line. This is unavoidable. Well, it would be avoidable if you had decided not to kill the last of the super-sized bottle of zinfandel, but you did, so you must deal with the line-up. For an hour. In the freezing cold. The heat lamps placed outside will never warm up your feet. You will wear sensible shoes next time. Sigh, no you won’t. Someone will have to go pee while waiting in line. Someone will not be able to hold it. You will suggest a dark alley for them. They will not take your suggestion. But they will still have to go pee. So they will sneak into an expensive sushi restaurant, instead. This is a safer and funnier solution. Your group will inherit ‘solo male’ in the line-up. He is a strange creature of the nightclub scene. He comes without friends. You always wonder who comes to these places without friends. (??) And he will look like the token rocker guy that they always let through to the first round of voting on American Idol – leather jacket and white t-shirt included. He will ask for your number by the end of the night. You will give him a falsie. You are probably going to hell for that, but these are the rules.

Upon finally entering the Non-Exclusive Nightclub you will walk past Lecherous Alley. Nondescript men will stand in a row, leaning against the bar, all dressed alike, pretentious micro-brew in one hand, surveying the door, nodding in approval, raising their eyebrows, watching you go by, and then looking behind you to see who’s up next. You will avoid eye contact with any of these men at all costs. In the coat check line, the man behind you will say something inappropriate. Tomorrow, you will not remember what it was, and that will make you happy. You will then wait in line, again, at the bar. It will take you twenty minutes to get noticed. You will always order your beverages in multiples. This means that you will probably spill your drinks on yourself as you try to balance them delicately while grooving on the dance floor.

They will play “Billy Jean.” And “Holiday Rap.” And TLC’s “Waterfalls.” You will hear Maestro Fresh-Wes. And Young MC. And Tone Loc. You can never get enough of the “Funky Cold Medina.” You will still know all the words. These are all songs that your friends from out of town could hear in their backwater bar back home. These are all songs that you could hear at any campus bar on any campus at any college. In fact, these are all songs that you could hear at your cousin’s wedding to her cousin. But, thankfully, they have stopped including “The Macarena” in the rotation.

There will always be a line-up for the washroom. The washroom will always be a disaster. There will not be toilet paper. You will ask the stranger in the next stall to spare a square. She will not hear you because she is preoccupied with vomiting. You will always be glad that you outgrew that phase last year. You will watch with concern as the vomiting girl gets crowd surfed on the shoulders of the bouncers out the back door. You feel sorry for her. But mostly, you feel sorry for her cab driver.

You and your group will stay and dance and smile and laugh with each other until 2AM. Someone will have to play wingman. Someone will have to be rescued. Someone will have to be cut off. And then you will spill out onto the street, moderately intoxicated and comment at how much warmer it is than when you were stuck in line oh so many hours ago. Someone will smell the sweet smell of street meat and buy a hotdog from a vendor. You may be drunk enough to do the same. Go ahead. It will taste good now. Or maybe wait and get a Whopper Jr. from the Burger King around the street from home. You will pile back into cabs, harass the driver until he talks to you, and lean your heads gently on each other’s shoulders, happy to have spent the time together.

This was fun, you say. We’ll do it again. And you know that it’s not the venue that matters – you hate the venue with its long lines everywhere and its corny music and its filthy washrooms – it’s the company that matters. And they are, as always, fabulous.