I am...Bergen West

Over the weekend, Jenny Boe and I went on a spontaneous road trip. She thought that Duluth sounded fun for a weekend trip, so we loaded up the Yaris that I rented after my first attempt at getting to Minneapolis failed when my car died on the highway. We booked a room through Hotwire, and headed north singing at the top of our lungs. We were inspired by our Yaris, by our fictional identities as travelers from Jackson, Idaho (which we later discovered actually exists) and by a bumper sticker we saw on the road that encouraged drivers to practice random acts of awesome. 

We got to our hotel and went to the desk to check-in. The employee at the counter was courteous enough to ask if we preferred a specific location in the hotel. Did we want a room near the pool, on a lower level or perhaps on one of the upper floors? "Let's get high," replied Jenny Boe, thinking of the view. I giggled. She giggled. The guy checking us in smiled, and asked us to excuse him for a moment. He returned from a back office with a paper for us to sign, legally binding us to pay two hundred dollars if we smoked in the room. Once we got to our quarters, we stashed Jenny's case of beer, my Captain and our wine in the mini-fridge. Jenny Boe cut to the chase and started talking logistics. If we brought back guys, someone had to take the shower. That was the only way. This inspired our brainchild, a public service initiative to "Bathe a Hippie." We were full of good ideas.  

We decided to call my cousin, Christina, who lives in Duluth, to see what she and her boyfriend, Chuck, were doing that night, and to get advice from a local about which bars are good. This was a fantastic idea. She told us about a bar with a band that she said would be a combination of hippies and hip-hop. A perfect combination for Jenny Boe and myself. I took to calling the event the hippie-hop, and could not wait to get my hands on a loofah and my first victim. 

After we got to the hippie-hop, things start to run together in my pickled brain. I remember several trips to the bathroom and Jenny Boe pointing out how many people in Duluth drink Mike's Hard Lemonade. I remember describing the crowd as, "a little something for everyone," but also that I wanted to see my cousin. When she texted to say that she was at Quinlan's and that there was still blood on the sidewalk from the stabbing there a few days earlier, we jumped into the next cab. 

When we got to Quinlan's we found Christina and Chuck. I also spotted this guy that I remembered seeing earlier standing in the rain smoking a cigarette. Christina saw me pointing him out to Jenny Boe and informed me that he was Vincent Cadillac, a local musician. This inspired Jen and I to come up with aliases. We were inventing fictional lives, after all, weren't we? Jenny decided to use Vincent Cadillac's successful formula, and came up with Pablo Ferrari. My cousin helped me come up with Bergen West, but when guys asked I couldn't remember it. I think that defeats the purpose of an alias.  

The night was one of those beautiful blurs reminiscent of riding a merry-go-round. I remember a lot of it, but found out the next morning that I didn't remember everything. This realization hit when I told Jenny Boe in all seriousness that someone stole my money. The conversation quickly snowballed.  

"I know that I had some money left," I told her, miffed. 

"Annie. Remember those twelve Captain and Cokes you drank? And remember how you calculated that you had enough money for eight? You do the math," she said.  

"Why does my nose hurt so much?" I wondered out loud. "Did I hit it on something?"

"Yeah. Your cousin's hardwood floor," she said. 

"How did I do that?" I asked. 

"You fell." 

"I did?"

"Yeah. During the dance party."

"Oh, God. I don't remember that. How did we get to her house?"

"We took a cab." 

"Where did I sit in the cab? The front?" I asked, hoping that this would evoke some memory that it actually happened.

"No, I sat in the front. You sat in the back with your cousin and Chuck," she said, "and you told your cousin that she had to sit in the middle between you and Chuck because when you get drunk you sometimes get frisky." 

"Oh. My. God. I didn't," I pleaded.

"I wish I could come to your Christmas."

She filled me in on other details. Like that I kissed a really gross guy and a couple sorta gross guys, and that the really gross guy was rubbing my back in a disturbing way, but I seemed to have liked it. I covered my face with my hand, because I knew who she was talking about, and told her that I was too mortified to look at her. Thankfully, I was still drunk as she was telling me, so it was a little funny. She asked me if I remembered the black guy from the bar and his girlfriend. I informed her that he told me that said girl was not his girlfriend. "Well, she was calling you a bitch from across the bar anyway," she said, laughing. 

I am not sure how I feel about the impression that I made on my cousin and Chuck. I know that I pissed off their cat, Toonses, because I distinctly remember him hissing loudly and swiping a paw toward my face. I am relatively sure that, if anything, I showed them too much affection. But I had twenty-three years to make up for. Now that I know how much I like them, I really hope they still talk to me after this. Plus, Jenny Boe wants them to find her a soul mate. 

I puked on the car ride home, because I always get car sick if I ride in a car (or drive, and let me tell you, that was not pretty) after a long night of drinking. Jenny Boe just laughed at me hysterically, rolled down the window and tried not to gag. This, in turn, made me laugh hysterically and puke simultaneously. "We get closer every time we hang out," she said. I smiled. It was the best weekend of my summer by far.