breathe in, laugh out

As my sister and I slowed to a walk, and turned into a dark ally, trying to catch our breath, I huffed, “we can never tell anyone about this,” and she quickly agreed.

Then I decided to blog about it.

It was a Sunday night.  Carissa didn’t have to work, so we decided to get dinner together at a BYOB restaurant, which will remain unnamed.  It will remain unnamed because I’d like to avoid the possibility of someone going there and revealing our identities.  I’m still convinced they can knock on my door and take me to jail.

It was an uncharacteristically hot day and night in San Diego.   I had burnt my skin to a crisp the day before, so I holed up in my house all day with a book.  I use the word house lightly, as it more resembled an oven.  I spent the day switching between the couch, the cooler wooden floor, and my bedroom, which is strangely about 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else.  By the time Carissa showed up, the sun was on its way down, and I was ready to exit the sweat chamber.

We sat out on the front porch for a while, chatting, watching Oliver play with every other dog that passed by, and drinking wine.  V and T came home and joined us for a bit.  By the time we decided to make moves for dinner, we had finished the open bottle of wine we started with, so grabbed the new big double bottle Carissa had brought with her.

The restaurant was a quick walk away.   It’s the kind of place where you stand in line to order, and then they give you a number and bring the food to you.  It always takes forever.  And the food always sucks…  Which is an issue I’d normally take up on Yelp, being this was the third unpleasant food experience… but my photo is on Yelp.  So they’re getting off easy on this one.

I stood in line and asked Carissa to get someone to open the bottle of wine.  When I met her at the table, I asked where the cork was, knowing we weren’t going to finish this huge bottle.  She said the waiter didn’t give it back to her.  I walked up to the bar and asked for the cork.  The bartender wouldn’t give it to me.  He told me we weren’t allowed to re-cork it.  Ok…

We finished eating and had about three-quarters of the large bottle left.  Carissa grabbed it, uncorked (how annoying), and we left.  A few feet onto the sidewalk, someone from the restaurant comes out after us.

“You’re not allowed to take that wine with you.”

“Oh… why not?”

“We’re not allowed to let you leave with an open bottle of wine.  You’ll have to either finish it here, or leave it.”

At this point it was late.  We weren’t really interested in drinking more wine.  But we also weren’t interested in wasting wine.  So we went back in, took a seat around the fire, and began to plot.  This is what we do.  We plot.

“I’m not wasting this entire bottle,”  I say.

“We can just run.”

“We can’t just run.  There are people everywhere.  They see us.”

We sat there thinking and slowly sipping for a few more minutes.  We talked about how much the cheap bottle of wine cost, and did the math on how much was left, and decided we’d only be wasting about $8 of wine by leaving it.  But that wasn’t the point.  The point was that it was our wine, there was a lot of it, and we wanted it.

Carissa had a purse.  I had my American flag backpack.  I was clearly the one who was going to have to sneak the wine out.  With Carissa on the lookout I quickly slipped the open bottle into my backpack, and clenched the fabric around the neck of the bottle.  The restaurant had emptied out, and there was just one other couple sitting outside, with a waiter chatting with them.  We decided to make our move as soon as the waiter went back inside.  There were three exits and we decided on a different one than the way we left the first time.

Carissa instructed me, as soon as we exited the gate, we run.  I was giggling already.  Finally the waiter left the table and walked in the door to the restaurant when Riss whispers, “GO!”

We get up, quickly walk through the gate, and then break out in a sprint down the main street.  Carissa is ahead, and I’m clutching the backpack in my arm like it’s a football, as I didn’t want to spill the precious uncorked wine.  I’m in flip-flops and going as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast.  A few seconds later, we hear:

“HEY!  STOP!”

The waiter is CHASING us.  Literally, running after us, chasing us down the street.  It was in that moment that I had to make a decision.  Carissa was far ahead and showed no signs of slowing.  I could hear the waiter catching up.  It was in a split second where I considered stopping, laughing, handing the bottle over and apologizing for the ridiculous behavior, and then it was in the next second where the adrenaline kicked in and I decided to just keep running.

The waiter was still chasing, and yelled “THIS IS SO CHILDISH!”

I knew it was, but at this point I couldn’t stop.  I saw Carissa turn the next corner, and I yelled to her, “IS HE STILL COMING???”

She turned around and shook her head.  We slowed to a walk, and turned down a dark ally.  Safe from the waiter.  We caught our breath for a few seconds, and I say, “I can’t believe we just did that.   We can never go back there again.”

Carissa says, “Well at least for a year.”

“We can’t tell anyone about this.”

“No definitely not.”

“I’m gonna tell Ginge, and that’s it.”

“I’m gonna tell Shane.”

We nervously giggled for a few blocks.  I felt like a teenager running from the fake cops who caught me hanging out with my friends in the local cemetery.  But I wasn’t a teenager.  I was 31 years old.  And I was running from a waiter.

Guilt set in full force.  Should I go back and apologize?  No, it’s too late.  I’m embarrassed.  I can’t tell my roommates what I did.  It’s awful.  Am I going to get arrested?  Do they have cameras?  Will they find me?  Was that illegal, or just against their rules?   I slept on it for a few nights, and then decided to confess to Ginge.

“I did something bad.  I need to tell you.”

Worry covered his face.  After I was done with the story, he made a muffled sound in his throat and then started cracking up.  Laughing.  A lot of laughing.

“This is not funny.”

“It is very funny.”

“Well I’m glad I told you.  I haven’t told anyone.”

“Do you feel like a weight has been lifted off of your chest?”

“Yes.”

The weight has been lifted.  It’s interesting that it took me 31 years to experience running from authority, in a very literal way, at least.  I’m glad I got that out of my system.  What is the statute of limitations on running from a waiter with an uncorked bottle of wine?  Until then, I’m avoiding all BYOBs.

Please don’t judge me too hard.  I’ve judged myself enough already.

Until next time….

xoxo Gossip Girl