I got to the girls about 5PM. They fix to-go drinks (some sort of coconut rum for Kate and vodka/cranberry for her friend) and we headed out. We rolled in to the 504 around 10PM, after a couple of pit stops. We got to our hotel and check in, grab a luggage cart and pile my small suitcase and the girls' 357 bags on there and we head up to the room. We get in there and there is one queen size bed and no couch and only one little wicker chair device type thing in the corner. Oh well, we will figure that out later. The girls freshen up and Kate hits up her friends to see where they are located on or around Bourbon Street so we can meet up with them. We get their coordinates and Kate's friend, who we shall call Josie, summons a Lyft for us and off we go. We met up with the group around 11ish at
Lafitte's. Everyone grabbed a drink and we hung out with the crew for a bit but they were getting restless, so we strike off down Bourbon in search of a new location.
Ticklers dueling piano bar was the destination. My first time there but they had beer, so it worked for me.
It was a fun place. We requested a few songs and stayed there for a couple of hours. A quite attractive, fairly drunken brunette approached me with a shot of Fireball and said she couldn't drink it and that I must. My stomach had been a little iffy earlier in the morning, so I was really trying to stick to beer for the evening, however who am I to argue with an attractive brunette who's trying to force drinks upon me. So like any good colonel would do, I negotiated a treaty to keep the peace. Told her to drink half and I'd drink the other half. This shouldn't be too bad on my stomach and it would also assure that I wasn't getting roofied.
Some of the group was fairly drunk by then, as they had a sizable head start on Kate, Josie and myself. Some of them were ready to head home for the evening. I think it was around 2AM at that point, IIRC, and some of the establishments were beginning to close. Mildly drunk Kate insisted on getting pizza. I have a pretty staunch policy of never turning down pizza so I say let's go. We find a place that had been recommended to us and we step up to the counter and I order a couple of slices. Kate loudly exclaims "NO WE NEED 4 SLICES!" I tried to convince her otherwise, but she insisted and she was paying for it, so ok ma'am, give us 4 slices
She hands us 4 slices in a single stack, each on a paper plate with the little wax paper liner. Kate grabs them and is walking down Bourbon Street holding them up in the air and the mental image I still have is something like a cross between
Simba and a
waitress balancing plates. We make our way back down towards Lafitte's to see what was happening there, but it was starting to close down as well. Josie had paired off with a member of the group and did not appear to be coming back to the hotel with us. I ask Kate if she wanted to catch a Lyft. She said she was busy eating pizza and we didn't have time for that.
so we start walking (it was less than a mile away).
We make it to the hotel and we are exhausted so we climb into the bed, plug our phones in and
. I am awakened a few hours later by Kate getting up and going to the bathroom. I doze back off briefly and I hear the bathroom door open. I look up and there is a completely naked Kate walking back to the bed.
She's still drunk and half asleep and she mumbled something about her pajamas were getting on her nerves. I laugh at her and roll over. She slides back into the bed and proceeds to snuggle up to me.
Now, I know what you're thinking. But what I'm thinking at that time is that there is NO WAY I'm doing anything with her. She's drunk, she's one of my best friends, and she's a hot mess of a woman, and I'm just not willing to cross that line with her. But for me as a single guy, I think to myself... Any night that ends up with a hot naked woman in your bed is not a bad night at all, regardless of what happens.
I laugh to myself and doze back off.
We are awakened several hours later by Kate's phone ringing loudly. The morning sun has vanquished the night and it's Red Dress Run day....
(sorry for any bad grammar... busy this morning and threw it together quickly. Will TRY to update later today, but if not, it may be Monday. Ahem. Busy this weekend. Love y'all. Mean it.)
