Another Adventure Spawned from my Incompetencies

These events are not nice when they happen in real life. In fact, they are terrifying.  But they sure make for good blog material!

Here's what happened:

After work yesterday, I went straight to dinner with a couple of my colleagues. We went to Kensington, enjoyed a scrumptious sushi dinner, and washed it down with a bottle of sake. (I had three two-ounce glasses of it, so maybe the equivalent of a generous glass of wine). Afterward, we played pool for about an hour before meeting up with another ThoughtWorker and heading to a bar to see some bands play in its basement. We arrived just in time to catch the opening act, which I can really only describe as an old white dude, probably in his late 50s, acting like he'd swallowed a bottle of crazy pills that morning. His set was surrounded by candles. There was a purple paper-mache monster head emerging from a sheet of fabric behind him. He was wearing a shirt with a giant question mark on it. He was yarbling into the microphone, slapping his guitar and occasionally making a well-aimed kick to a bunch of chimes nearby, which clanged like the sound of bottles being smashed. I had to ask myself several times throughout his performance, "Is this real life?"

Anyway, that is not important. What is important is the fact that I offered to buy the next round of drinks, because that was when I made The Realization that my wallet was missing.

I immediately froze and thought I was actually going to have a panic attack - not of the usual Asian-ohmygodIgotaB-arm-flapping-and-high-pitched-squealing variety, but a full blown, legitimate, collapse-to-the-ground-clutching-for-air, P!A!N!I!C! A!T! T!H!E! D!I!S!C!O! A!T!T!A!C!K! I had a flight out early the next day to come home to Maryland and I kept going over the phone conversation in my head where I'd have to explain to parents and best friend that I would not be able to make it back after all. And be stuck in Calgary for the weekend with no money. And I'd die of boredom or starvation - I wasn't sure which would come first. Those three or four minutes of brooding were a real period in my life.

But then someone handed me a rum and coke and I downed it. As the warmth of the liquor rushed into my system I was able to relax a little and consider my options. There were only two places where my wallet could reasonably be: one, at my coworkers' suite where I'd dropped off my laptop, or two, back at the office. If it had been stolen at some point during the night, running off and looking for it now as opposed to later would not make much of a difference. We decided to stick around to see the show and then go look for my wallet afterward.

Fast forward to two hours later: it's one in the morning, the show has ended, and my co-workers are drunk as skunks. My own agitation has sobered me up and after we leave the bar I find myself clutching the steering wheel of a totally unfamiliar vehicle in a totally unfamiliar city in a totally unfamiliar COUNTRY with two gleeful, intoxicated men in the car with me. Oh, and have I mentioned that I am probably the harbinger of the stereotype, "terrible Asian female driver?"

A few precious snippets of conversation that came up as we drove towards the office:

"Rose, why are you so nervous? You need to calm down. Do you need a massage?"
"No."
"Why not? 
(I feel fingers on my shoulders, I hit the brakes and shriek)
"BECAUSE I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE TOUCH ME!"

"Are you okay driving on the highway?"
"I"ve never driven on a highway before."
"You're kidding, right?"
(Pause) "Um. No."

"Do you have anything valuable in your wallet?"
"A couple hundred bucks."
"Anything else?"
"Two credit cards."
"Is that it?"
"No, I have all my week's receipts to expense."
"You can get those from your credit card statement. So you should be mine."
(30 seconds later)
"I uh, also have my social security card in there."
"A copy, right?'
"No, like the real card."
"Oh God."

We pulled up to the office at around 1:30 in the morning, retraced my steps, stole some other teams' candy, and found my wallet on the seat of my desk chair. Believe you me, I had never been happier to see that turquoise rectangle o leather. Nothing had been taken or tampered with, thank GOD. I drove home, ecstatic to have once again narrowly avoided disaster.

(The funny thing is, I drove considerably worse on the way back than when I was nervously heading to the office. I made big, deliberate happy swerves and swoops here and there that sent my drunk co-workers yelling in terror. We got back around 2 AM, took naps, and saw each other at the airport at 5 AM, looking like zombies.)

Now I'm back home the comforts of my real home, having spent a lovely evening playing guitar with my sister and eating delicious homecooked Chinese food. Weird to think that all this would not have been possible without last night's insane antics, eh?