Bad Choices are the Best Choies

Guys, I finally understand why people under twenty-one are not allowed to do fun things like drink and gamble.

 I kind of think that adults over twenty-one should not be allowed to do these things either, if I am being entirely honest. 

Let me elaborate. This weekend, I made a lot of bad choices. 

So many that I have decided to declare last Friday night as Danielle's Night of Really Bad Choices! (Note: there is capitalization involved because the choices were Really Bad and I felt like the extra emphasis was necessary.) 

But, no. It was just a night of really bad financial/life choices all around. First, my sister and I went out to expensive dinner and my wallet was sad about it. My stomach was happy because it was steak and I love steak, but that is another matter entirely.

 I also had several fruity girly drinks with dinner because I am an adult and I can drink fruity girly drinks without shame. They were really expensive and did not actually contain all the much alcohol. After like four appletinis (best drink, by the way) and a strawberry margarita, I was slightly buzzed, like, at best. 

I have no excuse for the fact that we went to the casino afterwards. Like, no excuse at all. But, yes, my sister and I went to the casino and I lost all of the money I had in my wallet. 

It wouldn't have been so bad if I would have lost it all, like, straight off the bat. But there was a point where I was legitimately doing a good job and winning money! I started off the night with thirty bucks.

 When you're a poor college student that is actually a lot of money. That is half of a power bill right there. Or a third of a grocery bill, minus the name-brand fruit juice. 

I lost ten of it real quick. There's a machine called the Zodiac Sisters and let me tell you, they are some fickle bitches. I've been to the casino three or four times and half of those times the Zodiac Sisters are like falling over each other to give me all of the money. My dad and I won a hundred bucks one time. It was great. I bought a pizza. 

But, no, other times they are just coldhearted and terrible fake people who take my ten dollars and give me nothing back. That's what happened this weekend. All of my money...poof! Gone! It was like magic,  but not the good kind. Dark magic. Evil magic. 

So, yeah. Ten dollars all gone. Three and a half bottles of name-brand crangrape juice. It was a dark ten minutes for me. 

But, once I got over that and stopped wailing in despair, my sister and I decided to play blackjack. Blackjack is a game that I am terrible at. I panic and do incredibly stupid shit like hit on an 18 or stand on a 12. 

But, no, my sister is super helpful and will usually stand next to me and tell me things like, "no Danielle that's stupid don't do that why are you making these choices no do you hate having money no no stop." So it works out. But, there were only two seats left and they were far away from each other so I had to rely on my own horrible decision making skills for once. 

I didn't lose all of my money right away. I started with twenty, got up to fifty and then refused to stop playing until I was back to zero. 

I know. 

I know. 

I know. 

I am not a functional adult and I do not make good choices. I've got that. I am crystal clear on that fact. So, yes. I left the casino minus thirty bucks which, when you make minimum wage like I do, is equal to about a whole shift of making stir fry. 

But, to celebrate our crushing and complete defeat, my sister and I went and got cigars flavored like tropical fruit. They were terrible, made me gag and I smoked mine anyway dammit. I am an adult I am so allowed to smoke cigars flavored like tropical fruit if I want to. 

After that, we almost got tattoos, wimped out on getting tattoos, went back to my apartment, watched mediocre stand-up comedians on netflix (none of them were women because women are terrible at stand-up) and ate lots of cookie dough ice cream. 

Bad choices! All of the things we did were bad choices! 

It was fun, though. 

But, yeah, the next day the people with the apartment above me made some bad choices of their own. And by the people above me, I actually mean the water-heater above me. It broke, leaked and ruined my bathroom ceiling. I woke up, went in to get a shower and saw hunks of drywall hanging down like flakes of skin hanging off of a gigantic, shedding lizard. 

I don't know.

It was unpleasant, water was still leaking down and I got hit in the head with a piece of ceiling. I called my landlord to fix it, as one does, and the maintenance guy came over, which was good of him. What wasn't good of him was how he went upstairs, stopped the leaking and then just kind of skedaddled without even kind of fixing my ceiling. 

I had to call back later and then they told me that I should be able to handle the whole "slowly crumbling bathroom ceiling" business on my own. Um, no, landlord people. That is not a thing I can do on my own. I do not have a husband or a boyfriend or even a close brofriend who I can force to do it for me. 

Even if I would have decided to date that midget little person dude, this would still be an issue. He couldn't have reached the ceiling. I mean, on a scale of one to Colorado, it is not that high, but still. That midget dude was really short. 

But, no, I can get by on my own usually. 

I can do a lot of things that most girls would have their male significant others do. I fixed a bottle-opener-shaped hole in my wall. I know how to replace fuses. I can grill burgers like a champ. I know how to fly-fish for gods sake, but I cannot fix my holey bathroom ceiling by myself, landlord. 

I was very whiny and persistent and they said he'd come back on Monday. I'm pretty sure they did that to make me stop calling them. The problem was that this was on Saturday. I didn't get to use the shower for like two days. It was horrible and I hated it. 

Anyway, my ceiling is fixed now thanks to my maintenance guy. I gave him a fist bump and told him thanks. I'm pretty sure I weirded him out. 

Whatever. 

Right now, I'm kind of chilling out in the library and avoiding thinking about work. I do not want to go to work. Do not want. 

See, I usually enjoy my job. Making stir fry is the bees knees or some other saying that means cool, but is more relevant socially. Fly? Swag? YOLO?

I don't know. 

But, no, whenever the weather is good, people decide to make the trek out to Elliot, the dining hall where I work. And the weather is really good today, guys. 

Work is going to suck, hardcore. It sucked yesterday too. I worked in the dishroom, so it was already less fun than usual. But we had so many people. Usually, we have like two-hundred and some-odd customers. That's a usual night for us. Last night we had 380, which is just insane. We haven't had that much since thanksgiving dinner last semester. 

I saw dishes in my dreams last night, guys. I'm pretty sure there is still nacho cheese lodged underneath my fingernails. 

Working in dining is so very glamorous. 

Later. 

Late Winter Break, Major News and Master Plans

Ugggghhhh. 

Guys. 

It is still so cold outside. It is March. It is not supposed to be cold. There is not supposed to be snow on the ground right now. 

Spring break is next week. This is the opposite of okay. I refuse to call it spring break. It is late winter break. 

Ah, well. It's not like I'm going anywhere or doing anything for spring late winter break anyway. I plan on chilling in my apartment and maybe replaying Mass Effect for, like, the eight time. I don't know. I should try to do something productive, like work on the book I'm writing or, I don't know, homework or something. 

I guess I can go to the bars? Or something? I am 21 now. That is a thing I can do. 

Speaking of my whole being-21-thing, I went to the casino again this weekend. I went in with twenty bucks and left with fifty! Yay! I now have enough extra money to either pay, like, half of my power bill or to buy two pizzas! 

It's really hard to order a pizza when you live alone, though. Because when the delivery guys comes to the door it's like I'm admitting, yes I do plan on eating literally a whole pizza by myself. Do you have a problem with that? There's a negative stigma that comes with eating a pizza by yourself, guys. 

Usually, I'll do something like play netflix loudly in the other room or turn the shower on or something and yell "oh, pizza's here!" to make it seem like I have another person to assist me in my pizza-eating. 

It's a lot of effort just to get a pizza. Usually, I just don't order pizza and instead eat lots of cereal. And waffles. And french toast sticks. I live primarily off of breakfast foods. 

Meh. 

I'm still disappointed about my super-lame spring late winter break plans. All of the other college kids are like "I'm going to Florida!" or "I'm going to some island somewhere!" And I'm over here in my stir fry corner like "I'm going to Fishers...maybe...if I can get a ride..." 

I need a car. And money. And also friends. I feel like all three of those things would be me improve in the long run. As a human. 

In Major news (see that's a pun because it's important news and also news about my major), I've been considering several different things to do. I need to finish this degree first...duh. I've sunk three years and several thousand dollars into this stupid thing. But once I'm done...I don't know. I don't particularly want to work with criminals? And also sociology isn't a degree that I can actually get a job in. 

So...I need a Master Plan (see that's a pun because it might involve a master's degree). A Master Plan that involves knowing what I actually want to do. My Master Plan most likely involves going to...wait for it...grad school! Or law school. One of those two things. 

Or I could just say screw it, drop out now and go to live in Canada. I had a dream I moved to Canada. It was pretty happy there. Maybe I should move to Canada guys. Maybe it's a sign. I love breakfast food, they have maple syrup. 

Granted, it's cold there literally all the time. 

So...maybe that isn't a thing I should do?

You know, I've typed rather a lot over basically nothing at all. I'm excellent at talking about nothing. I babble. And annoy. And irritate. And chatter. And ramble. 

I'm sure that there are other synonyms I could come up with. 

We've established...I'm loquacious. 

I'm also in the middle of a class. So...I should probably go attend to that. 

Bars are Weird, Casinos are Depressing and So Am I

Guys, this weekend was weird. 

I turned 21. Went to bars. Drank alcoholic beverages. 

Refused to dance beyond awkward hand motions. 

You know, the usual. 

So, I accidentally hit my friend in the head with my, admittedly rather large, nose. It was pretty hard. There was blood involved. Coming from my nose, not her head. My nose is large, not sharp. 

Anyway. 

I didn't actually drink that much, for turning 21 and all. I'm kind of super lame when I'm drunk too. Mostly I wanted to go home and take a nap, but that is kind of my default setting so no one was actually surprised. 

I get really weirdly pretentious, too. I kept quoting Oscar Wilde for some reason and talking about obscure bands. I don't know. I just wanted to let everyone else know I was better than them. Because of this, I sang really loud when songs I knew were on. I also sang really loud when songs I did not know were on. 

Also, I was really cold, but refused to wear a coat because I didn't want anything obstructing the view of my very sparkly shirt. 

It was real sparkly, guys. Fishing lure sparkly. Intense amounts of sparkle. 

And for some reason, I kept calling everyone dude. I don't know why. I really, really don't. 

So, you know...shenanigans. 

But the fun doesn't stop there, oh no it does not. The drunk Danielle fun train is just leaving the station. Lots of embarrassing stops coming up, folks. 

I'm going to tell you something and you're going to think I'm lying, but I'm really not. 

A midget hit on me. And I ran away. 

And before you yell at me, I mostly ran away because a boy was talking to me. Not because he was a midget, specifically. And look, I know that "midget" is probably not the most politically correct term or whatever. But if I'm being honest here, "little people" seems way more offensive than midget. Little people is what my mom calls her kindergarteners. 

But back to my story. I was hit on. By a little person midget whatever. It wouldn't be all that extraordinary, but he was literally the only guy who hit on me. All night. Have I just been looking in the wrong niche or something? Am I, like, just attractive to midget little people whatevers? 

This is going to require some soul searching. Also, some more trips to bars in the name of scientific inquiry. 

I am nothing if not respectful of the scientific method. 

Speaking of things that are weirdly sad and smell like smoke, I went to a casino! 

It was super depressing, guys. Incredibly depressing. Depressing all around. Most of the people there were old or looked old because their skin had been exposed to lots and lots of cigarette smoke. 

It was a hotbed of sin and debauchery, let me tell you. 

I spent thirty dollars. 

And won nothing. 

I also learned that I suck at blackjack. Did you know blackjack was a thing you could, like, hardcore suck at? I so did. It was really sad. Took me like five minutes to lose twenty bucks.

My favorite machine was an under-the-sea-themed slot machine. There were sea turtles and it make a do-do-do-do sound whenever I bet anything. 

It was all very exciting.

Until I lost thirty dollars and realized that my juice would have to be store-brand this month. That shit is just unacceptable. It is either watered down or way too sugary.  

Ugh...my life. Is so. Difficult. 

I should go. I have homework that I didn't do because I was busy quoting The Picture of Dorian Gray in a bar and singing the National and Frightened Rabbit songs over Ke$ha. Loudly. 

I'm real cool guys. I so don't blame that midget for hitting on me. 

Later.