At work Friday all the talk was about our planned happy hour get-together. Of the fifteen who swore they would be there, three of us showed up.

Our planned meeting place, as usual, was Latitudes on Church Street, a rooftop bar. The weather was miserable, though, so we went for a drink at the 2nd floor bar. As it was very slow there, we only stayed long enough to be sure no one else was going to join us. Then we wandered over to Hogs and Honeys, a watered down Coyote Ugly, which was apparently a watered-down version of Hogs and Heifers in New York. Its Orlando incarnation is rather tame, with executives dressed tough in biker leather. The bathroom walls were plastered with pictures of naked and nearly-naked gorgeous men. There's a mechanical bull in one roped-off corner. It was a hell of a lot of fun.

For a little while I sent Big D text messages, trying to coax him to join me:

*Come be with me* I sent first. He replied *Come home and you can get some*. I sent back *Cant drive for a while girls dance on bar here.* And that was the end of that conversation.

There was a 2-for-1 drink special, and we proceeded to get fucked up really fast. Too fucked up to tell that we should stop drinking. The music was great, the wait staff danced on the bar like MTV hoochies, and we were served deliciously free chicken sandwiches.

I rode the mechanical bull.

Three women managed to get to the roped entrance just ahead of me, but it turned out that one of them was Kim, a girl who worked with me at the evil accounting firm until we quit almost simultaneously. I convinced Kim to let me go on the bull first, easy enough since she and her friends were kind of nervous, so I was the first girl to ride that night. I jumped up onto the soft mats and threw a leg over the bull. There was a moment when I thought I was going to be humiliated in front of the crowd by an inability to haul my ass up there without assistance, but I used my grip on the pommel and my nautilus-increased arm strength to just barely make it.

Signed a waiver. Rode the bull.

It was set on easy, obviously, or I would have broken my face. There was no holding on with one hand to look cool, and there was no keeping my hair out of my face. I had to grip that pommel with both hands and stiffen my arms to keep from slamming my crotch into it. It was a painful experience.

I didn't fall off, and when the ride was over the bar erupted in cheers. I made my way back to our table and used my newfound fame to hit on the sexy asian wife of the cowboy at the next table. Close up, she turned out to be about 30 years older than me, but still quite pretty. I had an odd sense of deja vu, as if I had hit on that same woman with her husband before.

Drank a little more, but I was queasy from the bull. Soon my stomach was in full rebellion, so I decided to leave before embarrassing myself. One of my coworkers walked me over to the parking garage. I told him I was calling my boyfriend to come get me and said goodbye, closing my car door. The conversation with Big D didn't go too well, since I was quickly losing coherance and the phone wasn't getting good reception. I managed to tell him which garage I was in, but not which level. I couldn't understand most of the questions he asked, and could only answer "help me" until he hung up.

Then I opened the car door to lean out and puke. My shoes were off somehow, but I set one sock-clad foot on the ground and puked all over it. Kept on puking. When my stomach was empty the dry heaves went on for a while. I managed to get my sock off and threw it on the ground for some lucky garage attendant to find. Then I leaned my head against the door frame, exhausted. I remained slumped over, half out of the car, until Big D arrived a year and a half later.

He exlaimed angrily over my state and kept up a running commentary on the kind of people who would leave me like that while he hauled me up and put me in the passenger seat of my car. He drove us over to his van and transferred me to that passenger seat, then drove us home. I wasn't capable of conversation, so I couldn't defend my friends, who hadn't known I was so bad off. I did start crying for a minute, big, dramatic, drunken sobs, and mumbled protestations of innocence over and over until he figured out I was defending myself against his accusation of cheating.

"Is that what this is about?" he yelled. "You did this to yourself because of that?"

That wasn't true. I didn't set out to get horribly drunk, and I certainly didn't plan to throw up all over myself. It just kind of happened. I was just having fun.

"I rode the bull" I said, by way of explanation.

He pulled over for me halfway home, so I could lean out and puke some more, though I have no idea what was left in me to come out. When the new round of dry heaves stopped, I closed the door and passed out.

At home, he led me to the bathroom and strippd off my clothes, then carefully removed all my jewelry. I insisted on a bath, but he put the shower on so I could wash the nastiness out of my hair. When he left, I slowly lowered myself to sit under the streaming water, turning the knob to make it as hot as I could stand. Big D returned with towels and I shut the water off when it began to run cold. He wrapped my hair in one towel just the way I like it, then gave me another to dry my body.

It was all I could do to stand up, and he yelled in shock at the cuts and bruises on my inner thighs.

"I rode the bull" I reminded him.