Yeah. That’s it. Her name was Collette.
Collette was beautiful and nice and smart and funny and skinny and…well, you get the picture. She was an all around friggin’ beauty contestant, that’s what she was.
Collette had a best friend named The Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou whom she loved very much because she was nice like that. Of course, the Berta loved Collette right back and why wouldn’t she, reference the above paragraph detailing her many wonderful attributes.
As The Evil BL's birthday was fast approaching, Collette decided to give her best friend a present she’d never forget. She would take her on a magical trip to a delightful place known as The Big City. She planned and planned for weeks in an effort to make sure every detail had been attended to so that nothing could mar this special day.
Collette knew it would be a fairy tale excursion filled with good times and sweet memories. In fact, this trip would be such a thing of wonder and fabulousness, she felt sure The Berta would want to write a sonnet about it when they returned. (Possibly an ode even. Maybe a limerick.)
As part of her planning, Collette, who happened to suffer from a delightful disorder known as OCD, did what she always did before going on a trip. She began to sweat profusely, count the number of leaves on every tree she saw while simultaneously twirling the ring on her left ring finger and she researched hotels like a woman on a mission from God using a website that had never done her wrong before: www.TripAdvisor.com.
Hours and hours she poured over The Big City hotel ratings to be sure they were clean and nice and clean and clean and clean and that they were not owned by pirates. Collette was not a fan of pirates and she made it her practice to steer clear of them in all her daily affairs.
She was an Anti-Pirate-Ite.
Soon enough the big day arrived and The Evil BL and Collette hopped into a sweet compact carriage and began their three hour tour.
Their threeeeeee hour tour.
The first stop was of course the hotel.
“Hmmm”, said Collette upon their arrival in hotel’s parking lot. “That’s funny. No one on Trip Advisor mentioned this hotel is the kind with the doors on the outside. Homey don’t play that.”
“Aw, Collette, don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” said The Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou. The Evil BL was known throughout the kingdom for always looking on the bright side of bad situations. Collette hated that about her.
Against her better judgment, the unsuspecting Collette toddled into the hotel’s office in her wicked new nose-bleed shoes. As she walked through the front door, she cringed at the familiar scent of parrot chow. Sure enough, standing right in front of her was Captain Jack, the infamous hotel owning, Backstreet Boy pirate of the Midwest. He had spiked blonde hair, was dressed like the lead singer of a boy band and had a black patch over one eye.
“Argh,” he said, which is pirate for “how may I help you?”
“This hotel looks a little different than the pictures, Jack. Is it safe here?”
“Argh,” he said, which is pirate for “it’s totally safe here”.
So the obsessive-compulsive Collette and The Evil BL checked into their room and as per the agreement Collette has with anyone with whom she shares a hotel room, they begun the process of sanitizing it for her protection with the handy-dandy Clorox Wipes she never leaves home without.
“Tell me again why we’re doing this,” said the non-OCD evil one.
“Because Stone Phillips says gross hotel sleeping men show up in here and spend days on end doing nothing but shooting their sperm guns all over the room. It’s like silly string! It gets on the remote, on the ceiling, on the light switches and sometimes even inside the mini-fridge.”
“Do you think any of them left their numbers?” asked The Evil BL as she shimmied up the drapes to clean the light fixture.
Once the room was adequately disinfected, the two hopped back in the carriage and set out for the restaurant known as Tasso’s. They traveled far across The Big City and during the course of their journey, they passed through areas where even pirates would have been afraid to ask directions.
“Good thing we Mapquested this,” said Collette.
Tasso’s was the single most fabulous restaurant Collette had ever been to, and that includes the Wendy’s in Georgia that accidentally gave her an extra bag of fries and didn’t even charge her for them. An honest to goodness Greek restaurant, it was like being invited into someone’s home where a wild Greek party was in full swing.
There were wall to wall people and everyone was having a crazy good time. The music was way good, the pretty Greek boy who danced for money was all good and nothing nice, the food was beyond good and the belly dancer was so good she made Collette want to take mail order belly dancing lessons for fun and profit.
For three hours, Collette and The Evil BL were just two Greek girls out for a night on the town. They yelled “Opa!” approximately every 2.9 minutes, ate Hummus, stuffed cash in the belly dancer’s glove and drank one Greek beer each.
Noticing the pretty blue shots of Ouzo that were being downed by everyone in the joint like they were candy, Collette ordered one for The Evil BL. As she was responsible for driving the carriage, she couldn’t have one herself.
The pretty blue liquid smelled like black licorice and was warm as a baby’s belly.
“Ick,” said Collette.
In the time it took her to say the word ick, The Evil BL had slammed it down her throat like someone was standing over her shoulder about to take it away from her.
“Ick,” The Evil BL said. And then she made a face that looked as if she had licked the inside of a billy goat’s ear.
There were lots of fun characters at Tasso’s and Collette and The Evil Ouzo-soaked Berta Lou laughed so hard at them they nearly peed at least three times.
The funniest of all was the bow-legged drunk chick in a fancy dress who decided that after seeing the belly dancer do her thing for 30 minutes or so, she had somehow become a certified belly dancer instructor herself. She set about giving lessons to anyone that had the misfortune of standing near her. The only problem was that she didn’t look so much exotic and hypnotic as she looked like a horny bow-legged pig in silk humping air.
If you hold one hand up in front of you and hold down your middle and ring fingers, you will see the sign the sloshed girl made every time anyone said or did anything she thought was exceptionally wonderful and it was always accompanied by a big, “Woooo!”
Whether the waitress filled her water glass or someone said, “Excuse me, I’m just trying to get to the bathroom,” Drunk Chick responded as if Ozzy Osbourne had personally asked her if she was ready to rock.
As they left the restaurant, the two whipped out their trusty Mapquest directions and headed for someplace they could leave all their money in exchange for the fun of feeding it to a machine with lots of pretty lights and intriguing noises.
“That’s funny,” said The Ouzo Soaked Evil BL referring to the landmarks their carriage was driving past, “I don’t remember any of this.”
“That is indeed puzzling,” said the totally sober and clear headed Collette.
“I have an idea,” said the foggy headed one. “Pull into this convenience store and I’ll ask directions. There’s a space right between those two low-riders covered in gang graffiti. Those lovely bald-headed gentlemen inside with the prison tattoos look like they would be helpful.”
Remembering why she was called The Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou and not the Kindly Old Non-Violent Berta Lou, Collette complied. She watched as The BL sashayed in the store and approached the gentlemen. She also kept one eye on the blacked out vehicle that had pulled into the gas pumps behind them but out of which no one came to pump any gas.
Just as Collette was about to pull away from the future crime scene and leave The BL behind to start a new life as somebody’s bee-otch, her friend came back to the car with directions that would lead them to the safety of a friendly neighborhood gambling establishment.
Wrong directions. Totally wrong directions.
Directions that led them down a dead end road where a long, long line of tricked out, pimped out rides with heavily tinted windows were all parked diagonally…and all were backed in so as to allegedly make fleeing some sort of bloody spree an easier task.
And that’s where our fairy tale ends, kids.
The lovely and talented Collette and The Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou changed their names to Sadie & Trixie and now walk the mean streets of The Big City in pink wigs, short skirts and cute shoes ever searching for their next hit of Ouzo and Hummus.
The moral of the story is this: When embarking on a girl’s night out away from home and your best friend is in charge of navigation and drinking Greek liquor, pack heat or pack a husband.
Or a pink wig.
The Fray. Mmm-mmm, good.
Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.
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