Cheeseburger in Paradise

Remember when…

It all began with an order of nachos and a couple of sliders. It was just an ordinary Tuesday night and the girls were looking for some action. After grabbing a bottle of Skol from the local Shell, Waz popped the top and we pulled from the bottle all the way down Randall, finally landing at our destination, Cheeseburger in Paradise, for karaoke night. Being the shy girls that we are, we began with a Journey song to ease into things, followed by a riveting rendition of Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough to be My Man”. At that point we were ON FIRE so we decided to sing the entire album “Fly” by the Dixie Chicks. Believe it or not the manager and customers did not appreciate our 3 hour session, so we were booed off stage and asked to step down.

 

Due to all the singing and performing it was now time to wet our whistles. Cran and vods were thrown back, one after the other thanks to the awesome fake ID’s we had. We began to sing from the sidelines, cheering our fellow karaoke-ers on, proving our background vocals were just as strong as our main stage act. Suddenly we became a “disturbance” as dance moves were added and more drinks were ordered. Our night was about to come to a close but our tab was not.

Suddenly 2 women approached us wearing staff uniforms – Cheeseburger and Paradise fun governors. We immediately looked at one another and knew we needed to get out of here. Throwing in one last high kick, we inhaled our final gulps of cheap liquid and stormed out of the restaurant leaving behind a full, unpaid tab, running straight for Waz’s jeep. Inside we fumbled around with seatbelts and keys and radios. The next thing we knew we were being attacked on both sides – big pounding fists punched at our windows. It was the 2 women from CIP begging us to turn the car off and come inside, insisting we had stolen a purse from the ladies room. Foolish! We would never do such a thing. And who were these waitresses trying to accuse us of such things – even if we were cross eyed and drooling drunk. I knew in my heart of hearts there was only one thing to do at a moment like this so I uttered the one word that came to mind. I looked Waz straight in the eye and yelled DRIVE!!!

Waz’s eyes rolled into the back of her head then suddenly snapped open. Her foot jammed the pedal all the way down to the floor, knuckles gripped tightly at the wheel. Now, instead of taking the road like a normal driver, we decided to take a short cut straight through a ditch and across a frozen pond in between On the Border and The Claddagh Irish Pub. Her silver Jeep Nancy Kerrigan’ed across the icy pond, dismounting onto Randall, executing a full 360, then nailed the landing.

Minutes later (I think) we safely arrived at home, made some more nachos, kissed each other good night, then went to bed unharmed, unhurt, and musically unappreciated. In the morning we woke up like usual at 8 AM sharp, steamed our best business suits, and headed to work together thinking back at how successful our night had been. Unfortunately, this was only our version of the story.

Later that night, after a back breaking day of playing solitaire in the office and intermittently puking in the office pot, we entered the house ready to indulge in a home cooked meal when we see Waz’s P-units parked at the kitchen table with contracts drawn up. Oh shit – this ain’t no chore chart ladies. You’re in trouble. Apparently, the night had gone a little more like this:

It turns out we left our underage tab open after being thrown off the stage and out of the bar – the two women banging on our car were the managers of CIP and they didn’t accuse us of stealing anything, they didn’t want us to drive home, well, completely fucked up. And to make matters worse, we didn’t exactly glide over a blue placid lake, we took out an entire quadrant of the landscape at Algonquin Commons: bushes, flowers pots, and thick shrubbery. The cops were then called due to King Kong and T-Rex being on the loose and showed up at the house. Waz answered the door in a t-shirt and assured the gentlemen everything was swell, made them a cup of chamomile, and gave them great directions back to the 90.

In all the commotion parents were woken up, F bombs were exchanged, things were denied, Waz got slapped in the face, I cried “don’t slap her”, she got slapped again, we made some more nachos, then I slapped her, and then we hopped up the stairs to bed, dreaming about our future careers in the country music industry. Not remembering one second of this, we needed proof so Dad took us out in the garage and showed us the damage we had done to the Jeep: half of the tires were missing and there was a shark bite in the back bumper (most likely from a creature lurking in the bottom of the lake). It was then we knew we had done wrong and had no other choice but to sign the contract drawn up by the parents: We promised to stop drinking, to go to church every week, and to stop making nachos in the microwave without proper Tupperware as the cheese splatters and sticks and is impossible to get out.

A few days later we went back to that Paradise to say our apologies and pay our rogue tab. This time it was a male manager – he was cool and aloof and drank a gin and tonic. He shrugged, no biggie, he’d been there too, and accepted our $20 tip. Our next stop was to the police station where we planned to be cuffed and read our rights – 2 DUI’s served straight up please. Instead the chief of police was sweet and jovial as she handed over our 2 New Jersey ID’s telling us to have a nice day and thanks for visiting Illinois. We really thought we had learned our lesson as we said good bye and god bless and headed straight to the bar.

Cheers to nachos and burning rubber,

WAZ & Ti-Bag