The Night We Stalked a Bachelorette Reject

23 May 2017 Leave a comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’m going to begin this post by asking to not be judged.  Then I’m going to follow up that request with the realization that I’m a 34-year-old woman who is still obsessed with the Bachelor Franchise, and I deserve to be judged.

A few weeks ago, a notable Bachelorette/Bachelor In Paradise contestant, Chad Johnson,  posted something on his Instagram which indicated he would be in San Diego making an appearance at a popular downtown establishment for Rachel’s Bachelorette season premiere.  My friend Tay caught this immediately, and notified my sister and me.  We made a commitment that we would be at  The Tipsy Crow that evening and we would meet Chad.

Now, to me, Chad was a very unlikable dude.  He seemed disrespectful to women both on his season of The Bachelorette, and on Bachelor In Paradise.  He wasn’t anyone I wanted to support in the least bit.  But… being the huge nerd fan I am of the franchise in general, I obviously needed to be there.  I made a calendar invite so Tay and Riss would have consistent notifications and not forget about our planned girls night, and on this past Monday morning we reconvened and were set to go.

Until…

So… then I called The Tipsy Crow…

So… remember when I asked you to not judge me?  Judge me.  I was that crazy person.  I called the bar to make sure Chad would be there. Tay and I get to the bar super early and in true form, act as if we didn’t even know there was an event going on that night.  The security guards informed us the upstairs was reserved for the “Bachelorette” event and “The Bachelor” would be in attendance.  I *cluelessly* questioned that …. “Wait THE BACHELOR will be here??” (not even knowing who he might be referring to), as another male security guard stepped in and clarified “a guy from the Bachelorette will be here… his name is Chad.”  Ohhhhh we had noooo idea!  The nice men lead us to the only table available in the place and told us we could order food and drinks and then if we wanted, we could go upstairs, where the Bachelorette event was being held, and where Chad would be taking photos with all the guests… once the rope was opened at 7:30.

We did just that.  We sat at a table in the back, ordered a delicious tuna melt to share, and a a couple of drinks (for me)… we waited…until 7:30, then tried to walk to the front… where at this time it was a BUM RUSH of *actual* crazy girls, who had shown up holding roses and wearing matching Bachelor shirts.  I was literally embarrassed to be grouped with such people. Tay and I had met up with my sister, Riss, as well as a few other girlfriends, and stood in a very crowded line to get upstairs.  We stood in that line for the entirely too long amount of time that everyone else peaced out.  One thing I have in common with Tay is that we are both stubborn to a fault.  Did either one of us REALLY care about meeting this douchebag Chad Johnson?? NO. But were we going to wait in a never-moving line, and finally be first in the line to just leave and give up on the night??  Also, no.

I had made my sister my bartender for the night.  I’d wait in this ridiculous line, and she would just continue to go to the bar and buy us drinks and deliver them to said line.  At the point that Tay and I were number one on the line, they had announced that Chad wasn’t even upstairs anymore taking pictures with “fans,” but he had gone downstairs to where we had just been sitting eating our food as the first patrons of the fucking night because the upstairs lounge was “at capacity.”  I looked at Tay… “We literally couldn’t have played this worse if we tried.”  She agreed.

We decided we would wait.  Chad would eventually be back upstairs to the lounge to greet his “fans” and watch the premiere.  I literally didn’t care about Chad, as a person, but I cared about the cause.  We were here to meet him. We finally got upstairs… so did Riss.  We plotted… we spotted the back entry stairway that was also roped off to only staff and decided he’d be coming back up that staircase.  So we stood and waited…and waited… finally, right when the show started, I decided I was making a move.  If I left down the original staircase we came up, I was told I wouldn’t be allowed back up.  I informed Tay and Riss,

“I was taught by an old friend… if you want to go somewhere you are not allowed, you just need to act like you own the place, don’t look at anyone, and do it.  I’m going down the staff (forbidden) staircase and I’m going to see if I can find Chad.”

They warned me I may be kicked out, but at this point I didn’t care.  I descended the forbidden stairway, passing staff members sitting on it around the corner sharing dinner, didn’t look at them, and kept going.  I scrounged the bar looking for Chad and couldn’t find him.  I was about to go back up the forbidden stairway to let the girls know Chad was longgggg gone… when I decided I’d like to have a puff of a Black & Mild (yes, classy… I know)… so I exited out of the forbidden exit near the forbidden staircase, full-on determined I’d make it back in that forbidden door when I was done, as well as up the forbidden staircase when I got in.

What did I see outside on the sidewalk?  Oh… it was CHAD in all his glory, full lights, camera, action, doing an interview.  I quickly took a pic and sent it to Tay and Riss, an indication they should come down the forbidden stairway immediately, if they wanted to catch a glimpse of this hunk of meat on stilts (yes, he has the skinniest chicken legs on a man hunk you have ever seen in your entire life).

Chad was done with his interview and I overheard him saying, “Are you going to give me a good edit?? Everyone makes me look like an asshole.  I don’t want an asshole edit. I want to look like a good guy”

The producer tried to make him feel ok, by telling him they’d give him a good edit, and everything is a little “give and take.”  I thought… LOL they’re not gonna give him a good edit and he doesn’t like that.  So I set myself into action.

As soon as he walked away from the camera, I approached him.  And again, I deserve to be judged… because now I’m a straight up liar.

“Chad… Hi.  My name is Courtney and I was hired to write a blog about how you’re not actually an asshole, but you’re a really good guy.”

“Oh, really?  Cool!”

“Yeah, my sister and my friend are also writing the blog with me and they should be down here in a second.”

*Cue Riss and Taylor coming out of the forbidden doorway at the bottom of the forbidden staircase.

I walk quickly to them clarifying that they are also part of this very special blog highlighting how great Chad is, and they give me eyes, with agreement.

I take a selfie with Chad, *for the blog* and then I have Carissa take photos of Tay and me with Chad *for the blog.*  Chad happily takes all of these photos, and then tells Carissa that she is one of the girls he’s “given a rose” to tonight.  She says, “No, you didn’t give me one, but YOU SHOULD HAVE.”  She then, continues to tell him he has “really skinny legs” which I’m sure he was thrilled about, shakes his hand, and we all continue on our way.

Chad continued on his way to that upstairs lounge we waited all night to see…and we continued upon our way home.  It was a Monday night.  What were were all doing out at a downtown bar, anyway?  F-List celeb sighting… check.  Ridiculous photos with F-list celeb, check.  Here’s to stubbornness… and my friends.

xoxo

Gossip Girl

“You Dated HIM??”

15 Feb 2017 5 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The year was 2008. Maybe. Something like that. I was living in an apartment in Hoboken, NJ with two of my girlfriends at the time.  I was single, ready to mingle, and living it up the in the young, fun NYC ‘burb.  I don’t remember exactly where I met him, some bar, but I remember we went out several times.  He was a little bit younger, and a little bit of a ginger (yes, I’m noticing this trend), and seemed super sweet.  I guess I liked him enough to see him a few times.  I didn’t really understand what his job was at the time, but I remember him inviting me out to a local bar for a function to support this website he was working on.  I didn’t really understand the website.  It was something about watching sports at bars.  I didn’t care about it, or give it much thought.  I didn’t go to the event.

One day we were hanging out at my apartment, having a conversation, and some of, (let’s call him Devin), Devin’s stories just weren’t adding up.  He had originally told me he was staying with a friend or something like that while he was in between apartments.  His new apartment “wasn’t ready yet?” Some sort of complicated situation I don’t remember completely, and had no desire to keep up with.  During this particular conversation, however, I caught him in some sort of confusing tale in which he finally had to reveal to me that he had been lying to me since we met, and he actually still lived with his parents in Northern Jersey.  He just visited Hoboken, and stayed on his friend’s couch while he was there.  

I was pissed.  I wasn’t necessarily pissed that he lived with his parents (ehhh), but I was pissed that I was going to have to stop talking to him.  He was pretty cute and nice and seemed somewhat normal, and I was having a good time with him.  But I don’t do lying. Hard no. If during the first several weeks of knowing each other, you’re basing multiple conversations around a fact that is not true (an alternative fact, if you will), what the hell else are you lying about?  I couldn’t.  I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.  He was super apologetic and tried to explain his reasoning behind lying (obviously I get it; I know why you were lying, dumbass).  But it was over.  I’m pretty sure we didn’t speak again, besides maybe a couple of Facebook invites to attend events in which you watch sports at bars?  For this website he worked on?

Flash forward, the year is 2017.  I’m sitting on the couch with Ginge, he’s getting ready to play something he had DVR’ed on Comedy Central.  He’s been waiting for this.  The three main guys from his absolute favorite website are going to be on National TV.  He spends the majority of his free time on this website, while simultaneously listening to their podcasts.  The show comes on and the host introductions start.  I look up from playing Scattergories on my phone and am surprised.

“Hey, wait, I dated that guy.”

Ginge whips his head around and stares at me.  He then pauses the TV.  “You dated ‘DFC?'”

“Is that what we call him? Yeah, briefly.  Then I found out he was lying to me and he was living with his parents so I never talked to him again.”

“Well he’s rich now.”

“DAMMIT!”

That weird website he had been working on where you watch sports at a bar? Or something like that? Yeah, that was Barstool Sports.  And he’s one of the three main guys. How did I never come across this fact in the last nine years?  I really have no clue.  *#$(@&@#^($*&@#

I swear I’m Good Luck Chuck.  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Date me, as brief as it may be, and you’ll eventually marry a model, become rich, or do both.  You’re welcome, Devin, you’re welcome. Yes, I’m giving myself some of the credit for your success. I’m glad that little project turned out well for you. Truly. Cheers to Barstool Sports.

barstool

xoxo

Gossip Girl

 

 

Roommate Search Begins…

08 Aug 2014 Leave a comment

by CoJo in fun, life Tags: , , , , ,

Our rent went up, so V is moving out, and into a less expensive abode with my sister…  Which is traumatizing on its own.  Looking for a new roommate to fill her spot has already proven to be somewhat of a challenge.  Saying we have unrealistic expectations in a roommate is probably something I wouldn’t admit.  But our expectations are quite high.

Living in a desirable beach town, in an uncharacteristically large house for the area, and having perfect, sweet, fun, pretty, smart roommates, has created a situation where we are weeding through loads and loads of emails.  We realized pretty quickly that we couldn’t keep up with responding to them all, and even more importantly, we had to choose carefully who we agreed to actually meet in person, otherwise we’d have weirdos in and out of our house for days straight.

Tay asked V to be part of the process, because she felt like I wouldn’t like anyone at all.  So V would be a mediator.  Tay wrote the first Craigslist ad.  She made us sound like lovely, clean girls who do nice things and are kind and loving to all.  It was a great, well written ad, but it caused us to get a lot of emails with people describing their “healthy lifestyles.”

As we’re all sitting on the couch reading through emails, Tay says, “What is with this HEALTHY LIFESTYLE everyone is talking about??”

“Maybe you made us sound too healthy.  You were talking about hiking and working out and I don’t do any of those things.”

“Yeah but I also said we like happy hour and day drinking.”

“You didn’t harp on that enough.”

“These people won’t eat pizza with us on Sundays.  That’s a problem.”

Tay had an original list of 32 potential normal sounding people.  The three of us sat on the couch social media stalking one after the other, crossing them off as we went.

“Too skinny.”

Next….

“Too ugly.”

Next….

“Too much beard.”

Next…

“She takes too many pictures of food.”

Next….

We ended up with a winning four, and invited them to come see the place.  We found ourselves warning them of what they’d be getting into.

“People show up and have parties here some Saturdays… people sleep on our couches… we’re loud every Friday and Saturday….and sometimes Thursdays, and Sundays… The dog is pretty annoying… V will basically still be living here because she will miss us when she moves out…. Court walks around naked if she works from home some days…”

We scared people away.  But we felt it was only fair.  That way they wouldn’t move in based on our “lovely” persona and then hate us. At this point, I decided to re-write the ad.

I added some flavor and some spice.  I instructed potential roommates to bring us wine.  And I put every sort of “warning” in black and white, in a charming tone.

Bingo.  The slew of emails that came after that were from fun, creative, friendly people who offered to bring us wine, play with the puppy, watch the Bachelor with us, and jump in for driveway hangman and beer pong sessions.

We had our first visitor from the new batch of potentials come to see the place last night.  It was Thursday night so we forewent happy hour out, and just opened some wine at home, hung out and waited for the guy, who didn’t arrive til 9:30pm.  We considered this sacrifice.  Carissa was over, and so was another girlfriend, Danielle.  This dude walks into a house of 5 slightly buzzed girls, some with purple teeth (ok that was me), and was probably somewhat afraid to be eaten alive.  We give the tour of the house, Danielle leaves to go home, and Carissa and V sit outside while Tay and I interview the crap out of him.

He stayed for SO long, that we had to offer him beer (he drank two), and he is now well versed on how badly Tay’s farts smell, which of our friends would probably try to jump in his bed, and how much I don’t shut up after a couple of glasses of wine.  Although I warned V to not be weird and quiz him on his athletic abilities, I jumped right in for her to decide if he’d be a candidate for our softball team, and basically gave him a verbal tryout.

What’s funny is that he’s still interested in the place.  We figured if he could handle that… he’d survive with us just fine.

We have four more girls coming this evening.  We don’t have high hopes for the first because she’s way too pretty and skinny and none of her clothes would fit us.

…to be continued.

Until next time.

xoxo

Gossip Girl

 

 

#TBT: Metal Dump Trucks

16 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by CoJo in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’ve decided to spice this thing up a bit with a little #tbt action… you know… get with the times.  I’m old.  And I only started blogging a few years ago.  There’s obviously been a lot of weird blog-worthy crap that’s happened in the tens of years before I started my original blog (which is now set to *private for annoying, career-related reasons).   So in an effort to throw the normal “chronological order” type of blog out the window, I’ve decided to do throw-back Thursdays (I’m super hip).

This week I’ll stay relatively current.   If you knew me at all, you’d know I pull my phone out and document quote-worthy situations in my iPhone’s notes, any time I feel like something happens that I don’t want to forget.  And I forget a lot…Because my brain is full of useless information and conversations… And I’m old… as I may or may not have mentioned.

As I was scrolling through my notes recently, I found a conversation that took place during my road trip from New York to California this summer.  If you’ve ever driven cross-country with anyone, you’d know that normal conversation eventually runs out.  My sister and I didn’t have normal conversation to begin with, because that ran dry years ago.  We started with a blank slate, and the weirdness followed.  It was past the cities we set out to stop in… past Nashville…past Santa Fe.  It was in the Middle.Of.Nowhere.U.S.A.   We kept seeing these huge trucks… they looked like dump trucks except with metallic bodies.

Carissa says, “What’s IN those?!?  I’ll bet it’s milk.”

I agree.  “Yeah, probably milk.”

We keep seeing them.  Over and over again.  It was really bugging us.  Carissa’s driving, and I’m falling in and out of sleep.  More OUT of sleep, because she is the worst driver in the history of the planet and every time I shut my eyes, I feel the car swerve and think I’m going to die.

I forced my eyes open and saw another metal truck.  This time I noticed a name on the cab.  I googled it.  There were a lot of things that came up with that name so I googled the name along with “metal truck.”  I finally found something that might be relevant.  Carissa told me to call.  I called…. on speaker phone.  A woman answered.

“Hello.  I was just wondering what’s in your big silver trucks.  Is it milk?”

Hesitation… She had obviously never fielded this type of phone call:  “No… it’s dried goods.”

Carissa, overhearing from the driver’s seat whispers to me… “Like wine?”

I’m not sure why I listened to her on that one, but I ask the woman on the phone, “Like wine?”

The woman answers, “No… things that are dry.”

I say, “Ok, bye.”

I promptly hang up, annoyed.  Carissa says, “Liar.”

I concur. “Liar.”

And the drive goes on.  And we continue to bitch about what a liar that woman was, and how we know it was actually milk in those trucks…because we have nothing else to bitch about.  And because we have a thousand miles left to go.  And because we know that as amazing as it will be to arrive at our final destination, every weird thing we do along that trip west will be forever engrained into our minds.  And there were a million more of those weird moments we will continue to laugh about… with ourselves… because most of them probably aren’t even the least bit funny when you’re not delirious and high on sugar-free Red Bull.

But until next time…

xoxo

Gossip Girl

 

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