Tonight I joined the friend who made my birthday special on an excursion to make her birthday special. Looking hot, we met up with some of her friends (and her sister, who is closer to my age then my friend is, yay) and headed to a popular bar in the other big town in the H.C. (other than Goderich, obviously), Grand Bend.

One of my weaknesses is that I’m often uncomfortable in new situations, new places, and with new people, especially when I don’t know what to expect. If I have someone whose side I can cling to, I do alright, then once I get used to the situation or the layout of the place, I’m fine. Usually.

I’m less comfortable in places where people are more likely to boldly (drunkenly) talk to you or single you out. If I’m simply blending in, that’s one thing, but looking hot in a huge place packed with drunk horny people on a long holiday weekend is terrifying! If I had known, I probably wouldn’t have gone, but then I would’ve missed the drama!

So there’s a zillion people in this place, people lined up around the building waiting to get in. It’s Jam Night, so there’s live music that’s not necessarily wonderful, and inconsistent. There are several self-important beefed-up security dudes allowing people into the building in small groups, after checking everyone’s ID. Telling them we’re with a birthday girl doesn’t work for us at all.

Once inside, our group was split up by the layout of the place and the sheer multitude of people inside it, constantly moving. I didn’t even see the bar the whole evening because I wasn’t brave enough to fight through the 5-deep crowd buzzing around it. I was so overwhelmed by the noise and the people and the strange place that I wanted to leave as soon as I got in, but stuck it out anyway.

Two of us found a couple of stools in a very busy passageway and claimed them, our knees getting very familiar with strangers without any input of ours whatsoever. We chatted and sang along a bit, and sipped our drinks, but mostly kept squishing backwards in our chairs to get out of the way as much as we could.

We had gotten a little sick of the constant surge of scantily-clad tipsy youngsters when a garbage can came through one of the floor-to-ceiling windows beside the stage, about 20 feet from us, shattering two layers of glass and drawing the attention of 450 people. The band members were instantly bounding over tables and chairs and people and out an emergency exit to catch the punk while we just watched, stunned. Then there were cops and security guards with headsets. Hundreds of people stared and milled about, and we had a great view.

As soon as the band was back on stage and playing again and things were calming down, a fight broke out in front of the stage that had the musicians trying to play their instruments with one hand and slap the idiots with the other. The Macho Macho Bouncers shoved a group of people out the door as the singer yelled obscenities through the microphone (“Will the $&#^ing psychos get the $^@& out NOW?!”). The crowd started chanting along with him.

After all this, I figure I’m safe to trek to the washroom. Arriving to the lineup unscathed, it wasn’t till I was almost done my business that the yelling and the mighty mighty F-bomb made their way to the doorway across from the ladies room. More beefy bouncers herding bombed bar-goers away from the head case who was apparently still trying