“If anyone asks, we all ate these wings,” I say to the table as my hand hovers over a plate covered with the bony remains of twelve chicken wings.

I’m sweating profusely from eating twelve chicken wings by myself, and I swipe the back of my hand against my forehead. Around the table, there are four other plates piled with chicken bones.

*****

This post was basically decided for me, thanks to two of my coworkers/friends—let’s call them Melody and Aerin, you know who you bitches are—so, like, know that I was basically forced to write this like some kind of journalistic prostitute.

I had a post all about Go-gurt half-written for today, Thursday, but I switched to this because last night I—strong of body and narcissistic of mind—went out on a WEEKDAY like a goddamn Carrie Bradshaw.

Side bar, I wrote “Carrie Bradshaw” because she’s the only modern working-going out woman I know of, and I couldn’t remember what Samantha’s last name was in Sex and the City.

Wait, also side bar. Is it Sex In the City?

*****

Before going out to the local bar—and by “local” I mean the bar close to my work, which is forty minutes away for me—we went to a camp variety show, where I got a damp ass from sitting on moist benches. It was…a lot.

“Are you serious?” my coworker—hmmm, Evan (?)—says. He stands up and motions a hand down his front, pointing out his outfit. White t-shirt, olive chino shorts.

“Are you FUCKING serious?” I say. I look down at myself. White t-shirt, olive chino shorts. A few weeks ago, we went to a party and wore the same outfit as each other—black t-shirt and khaki chino shorts—yeah I’m not original. I don’t have a lot of non-gym short options, especially because I’ve gotten fatter but not gotten richer.

The fact that I’m apparently subconsciously psychically linked to this sixteen-year-old is a complete and utter waste of psychic abilities. Either that or God has a rude sense of humor.

Warren, in his raspy, young Walter Cronkite voice, laughs.

Every one of my friends—I guess I can call them friends instead of just “coworkers—is looking beautiful. But, frankly, I see them in very worn conditions, so just not have sweat stains larger than the rings of Saturn is an improvement.

We order our wings, after the waitress coming over multiple times, and after a quick but heated debate over the appropriate number of wings for Evan to order, it’s settled. I ordered six sesame and ginger and six tossed in a mixture of barbeque and buffalo.

Side bar, if I ever create a TV show, it will be a sitcom about a redhead, played by me, and an Asian, Sandra Oh, I’m assuming, who are best friends and chefs and I’m calling it Sesame and Ginger because I’m culturally insensitive and also hilarious.

*****

“White was not a good option to wear,” I joke. “You can probably see all of my sweat.”

No, you can’t see my sweat, but Melody points to my shirt, at a spot directly underneath my left collarbone. My stomach drops through the soles of my feet and burrows about six feet into the ground.

“What?” I ask, my voice cracking into a thousand pieces. “What?”

She doesn’t say anything, but keeps pointing. I tug at my shirt, tucking my chin down. And on my shirt is a glob of that fucking barbeque-buffalo sauce. On my WHITE, UNIQLO T-SHIRT.

I waddle—again, I’ve just consumed twelve chicken wings within a fifteen-minute stretch—to the bathroom and wring my hands on the doorknob. It’s locked, so I have to pretend to be a normal, functioning human being instead of a psychotic human volcano. The bathroom’s occupant eventually leaves, and I rush in.

First I wash my hands of any treacherous chicken residue and then examine the spot. In the mirror, the spot looks much smaller, but I imagine I can feel deliciousness soaking through the pearly fibers. I dampen it with a soaked paper towel and spend five minutes just batting at it like a kitten with a toy.

Halfway through the process, I look up at the mirror. Oh damn, I look hot. My shoulders look broad and muscular in the white t-shirt, and my hair lays thickly across my head, with the perfect amount of swoop. Not crazy enough to be a swish but not flat enough to be a flop. Sometimes I forget that I’m a broad person. I still think I’m the scrawny beanpole—with a 10/10 face, of course—but I’ve become…wide—in good ways. I look, like, really hot. Fuck yeah.

Eventually, the glob has diminished into a slight smear, that keeps taunting, but I know have another issue. My shirt is a thin, silky-feeling material, i.e. I now have a wet circle of fabric beneath my collarbone that has all the subtlety of a gunshot wound.

I press my hand neatly against the wet, very “Southern belle,” as I leave the bathroom because A) my last-minute frantic attempts to dry it off have not gone well and B) there’s a very small window where you can be in the bathroom without people thinking you’re shitting.

*****

The whole point of the night was to hang out with coworkers at the bar late into the night until everyone realizes that they’re in love with me. They are, they just need to figure it out. But the bar is so often frequented by fetuses—sixteen-year-olds—that the owner of the bar flips on the lights at 10:30.

Everyone hisses like vampires.

“All right, everyone without an ID get out,” he says. My friends—cool fetuses, not lame fetuses—decide to leave before they’re kicked out. So suddenly our friend group is fractioned off.

Then, later in the night, I spotted a hot British guy, one that Melody and Aerin frequently obsess over. I’m standing five feet away, his back is turned to me, so I say to Evan and another coworker—Miles—“Oh my god, it would kill them if I got a picture of him.”

We debate several different ways to take his photo. I say that I should go with the classic “walk up and take the photo over his shoulder and then change my name and join the Witness Protection Program” but that doesn’t go over so well. Miles and Evan spend a hot second trying to take secret swiping shots of him.

I, in my infinite wisdom, say, “Or we could just do this,” and lift up my phone in clear view, zoom in and hit the button. All of a sudden, my flash goes off. I narrowly avoid smashing my phone on the ground and double over, pressing the flash into the fabric of my shirt as the camera goes off. Serves me right for playacting paparazzi.

Eventually my friends and I “leave”—decide to vacate the premises before we are thrown out—and I hiss “Fuck you”s to all of the people my age or younger that I pass on the way out of the door who are being ballsy as shit and staying in the bar.

*****

We hang out a park—no stabbings—for a while, discussing various tidbits of gossip, before splitting up to go home.

I guess, as a college student, the night was a technical fail because we got “kicked out” but I ate twelve chicken wings, so I’m counting last night as a win. And that’s all that really matters.

*****

Side bar, should I publish the Go-gurt post? It’s just essentially 400 words of portable dairy conspiracies. I think I just answered my own question: FUCK YES.

P. FUCKING S. I’m so sorry Marco, but I put Sandra Oh down because I figured in between us traveling the world as a pop duo, our burgeoning organic pudding shop and our podcast, we might need a little space. Mistake rectified; Sandrah Oh is OUT.