The Brawl

I’ve mentioned before that I have a big group of friends from high school. What I didn’t mention was how badass we all are. I will mention that now.

Friday night we all decided to get together for a Christmas party. We’d meet up at one girl’s house, eat and drink, then go to a new club in town. This new club is all the rage here in Sactown, it is THE place to be. It’s line down the block cool. And my group of friends are not only badass (as will be proven later) but also extremely hip and happenin’ (as you will just have to trust me on (no matter what anyone who actually knows us might say)).

Now normally "line down the block cool" results in me "not going within a block, thanks". Cause I don’t know if you’ve picked it up from this blog, but I ain’t cool. I know it, I’ve accepted it, and I’m quite okay with it. Think of all the money I’m saving on shoes alone. But my friends wanted to go to this club and one of them made arrangements so we didn’t have to stand in that very hip line down the block. So in the spirit of Kwanzaa I figured I would go dance to some hip hop music in a trendy club. Jesus would be so proud.

So we go to the club and it’s all "I’m so very cool because I charge you $20 to get in and I have upside down Christmas trees hanging from the ceiling and people pay $5 for my water." And I was all, "I’ve come straight from a family function and I’m wearing a sweater and khakis and I’ve never felt more unhip in my life." I was hoping that perhaps I was so unhip that I was actually hip, you know, that I was too cool to try to be cool? Yeah, I wasn’t buying that either. But I didn’t really care, my outfit did not affect my ability to shake my groove thing to ‘Baby Got Back’ and "In Da Club". In fact, I’m sure those hip shoes would have just increased the odds of me twisting my ankle during the particularly exuberant "Turn around! Stick it out! Even white boys got to shout!"

Following that exuberant turning around and sticking it out I decide to take a break and converse with some friends near the bar. It was at that point that the evening started to look up. Apparently while I was dancing there had been a brief altercation between one of my friends and another girl in the club. Something to do with the fact that the other girl had screwed my friend’s brother out of money. Or something. I didn’t really care. All I cared about was that there was a good possibility that things were about to get way ghetto in this classy club. This filled me with much holiday joy.

My friend seemed to have really upset this random girl. The girl was so upset that she apparently lost the ability to count. She thought it would be a really good idea to try to start a fight with someone who was there with 15 of her closest friends. She came up to us a couple times, tears in her eyes, screaming about who knows what, looking decidedly unhip despite her cool shoes. Each time she was held back by one of our friends while the rest of us prepared to brawl if necessary. Well, by "the rest of us" I mean "the rest of the girls". The guys were just in charge of holding the drinks and the purses as the girls went out to battle. Because, as I mentioned before, we are badasses.

How much do I love this? So much. How much would I have loved to see us all get in a brawl? So so so so much. Now, we’ve all be friends for over a decade and there would be no hesitation if one of us needed defending. But let’s be honest, in that decade we haven’t embarked on a lot of street fights. On Friday our group included two cops, a high school teacher, a veterinarian, a congressman’s aide, and a soon-to-be college professor. We are probably not what many would describe as "intimidating", unless of course you are talking about our mad dance floor skillz. (Our "turning around" and "sticking it out" abilities are the envy of many.) At one point one of my friends said, "I work for the United States government, I can’t be pushing people in clubs!" To which I said, "I’m just a graphic designer, let me do it!"

Could you imagine our white asses trying to get in a bar brawl? Seriously. It would be the most pathetic fight you’ve ever seen. I keep picturing the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, when he says, "Put ‘em up. Put ‘em up." And he’s bouncing all around in a ready-to-fight pose. That’s what we’d look like. There’d be flailing, there’d by hair-pulling, there be attempts at rational conversation to avoid confrontation. Which is what the United States Government worker did. She calmly placed one hand on the shoulder of the attacker, while keeping her drink balanced in her other hand (because after spending $9 on a drink one must protect it just as much, if not more, than a friend). Then she explained to the crazy girl that this was probably not the time or place to have an altercation, and perhaps if she could calm down, she might be able to realize that herself. At this point I handed my beer to the guy holding the purses and ran to be a part of the rational conversation. My friend continued to calm the girl down and I sporadically threw in a "Yeah!". And then the girl left the club.

Like I said, we are quite badass.

Look, I know it ain’t a P Diddy caliber nightclub altercation. But for a group of white-collar workers it was really the best we could do. Sure, we were all ready to fight if we had to, but we were also equally interested in the upside down Christmas tree. So yes, we might be a little more Martha Stewart than 50 Cent, but don’t try messin’ with us. We’ll rationally discuss you right out of any club, any time.

Bring it.