Award Tour Vol. 20: Stranger Things Have Happened

Saturday Night

It's been a long day... earlier I helped move a 1 ton cargo shipment from a basement to a landfill (this is not an exaggeration... it was actually 1 ton). Immediately afterwards I went to participate in a church function for nearly 3 hours, followed by a another meeting. I’ve done more, by the time you’re reading this, than you’ve done all day.

And honestly, I'm tired. But dammit, it's Saturday night, and I have earned some leisurely diversion. I recall there’s a party for a friend of mine in D.C. so I head down to the club in the area of Georgetown (which means no matter what, there won't be any parking). After inching my way through the gridlock, I zig-zagged the surrounding neighborhoods looking for a place to park - and predictably found nothing. Everything within a few blocks radius of Georgetown is filled - there isn't enough space on the streets to park a pair of roller skates side by side. Obviously I'm going to need to go a little further out (and by a little further out I mean a few light years)

After a sustained drive away from bright lights of the crowded streets of Georgetown I found a crevice of a parking space… not large, but big enough to squeeze my car into. I hit that parallel park, and gather myself - this isn't going to be an easy walk as tired as I am. I'm so far away from where I intend to go - I'm honestly not sure if I can make it back on foot. I decide 3 things: 1. Pain is all in the mind and 2. I came to party come hell or high water 3. This is probably a bad idea. (It actually went in the order too by the way).

After a 20 minute walk back to the main thoroughfare, I conclude to myself (just for future reference), that lying to myself has very little upside. Pain is not all in the mind... it’s in the legs right now and it’s working its way into the lower back; it seems safe to say that pain is branching out and setting up franchises wherever the market is ripe. It seemed heroic to say it was “all in the mind”, but yeah… not true… not true at all. Purge it from your vocabulary and have the cheerleaders scratch it off the poster bards at the pep rally. It is not true…moving on…

I find the club and make my way through the line and inside and you know what? Even though my feet are on fire, even though my back is tighter than an elevator cable… for a moment, it actually seems like it was all worth it. This spot is kinda' nice... an undeniable diverse mixture of people, pretty good music, as long as they make a good Long Island Iced Tea, I'll be willing to give it my STAMP of approval.

I think I left out the part, that this was actually a going away party for one of my folks... let's call him Creamtastic. (Don't ask why... let's just call him that). Creamtastic is moving onward and upward to a new job position. We want to send him off in style, so we come out to party with him... well with him and the many women he almost always has in tow (rest assured this is part of the reason why we'll refer to him as Creamtastic in this story).

Anyway, as par for the course, I get into the club and get LIT (Long-Island Iced Tea) and I keep it moving straight over to the ladies, some of whom are flocked around Creamtastic like...

...well like women when they flock around Creamtastic. It's kind of a hard phenomena to describe. It was like a slow motion feeding frenzy composed of “mating dance” and “hate”. Where each woman was in competition with every other woman for Creamtastic … I’ve actually seen this happen before. Actually it was worse the last time… it was like a hurricane of booty being thrown at Creamtastic … I honestly feel like some innocent bystanders could’ve been hurt. It’s probably going to happen here too, but we’re not at that point yet… this is more like the calm before the butt-naked storm if you will.

I could usually tell who the Cream Candidates were by the way they hugged him. If they didn't leave at least a 2 inch air gap inbetween them during the hug (i.e. the Church hug) ... then she was a candidate. And 1 by 1, they embraced him, pushed up close and tight… like they were literally trying to merge with him on some metaphysical level. All that’s left to be said is:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

WELCOME TO THE 1st Annual, 2005 Creamtastic Invitational.

I’m no Denzel (hell nowadays even Denzel isn’t Denzel) but I usually do alright at the club,
but not this night...
not at this club...
not with this clientele.

This was like American Idol for "Whores". For anyone who is not named Creamtastic, the word for the night is “plutonic”. This is bigger than one or two men’s egos. The rest of us could watch statistics in action; it's almost like watching a mass migration of Red Crabs on Christmas island during mating season. There's alot of them out there because statistically, alot of them just aren't going to make it. Many of them will set out on that journey to reach the Creamtastic Ocean... and most of them will be flattened under the Wheels of Rejection spinning on the Cars of Hard Knocks. Life is hard that way sometimes.

As the competition wore on, I found I could tell who the front runners were based on their distance from the Creamy nuclei (bear with me). I’m not talking about the soft caramel nougat of a candy bar (though I kinda wish I could work that into the story... just seems like it would be epic use of metaphor if I could), I’m talking about the center mass of interaction. Those higher in the standing were a relatively short distance away from the center mass, while those lowest in the standing orbited from a much further distance (perhaps they had already been mathematically eliminated). But the circle closest to the center; now there was some competition for you.

If he took pictures with one, the next candidate would have to take a picture with him and share a toast. For the next candidate to top that, she would have to take pictures with him, share a toast, and dance the Lambada with him. The one-up-manship went on subtly all night. And all I could do was watch and laugh (literally). Towards the end of the night, the true championship contenders started to separate themselves from the pack, cutting in on dances, interrupting conversations; it was March Madness in April. When I finally decided that "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest, was as good a song as any to make an exit, the battle for Ultimate Creamy was still going on. I'm not sure how it turned out. I can't say for certain that one of those candidates didn't actually try to dry-hump Creamtastic right there on the dance floor (actually when I left, it looked like a pretty good possibility - I mean afterall, "Electric Relaxation" was playing - if not to this song – then when?). All I know is that, the athlete that is willing to go that extra mile, usually comes out on top (there’s a joke in there that writes itself). So to that most committed woman of that night, whoever you were, whatever you had to do, congratulations on being crowned Ms. Creamy Invitational 2005. Without a doubt, you had to have gone above and beyond the call of duty to have won such an award. Hopefully you can still hold your head up with dignity after this evening (I'm betting against it, but stranger things have happened.)