It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To

If somebody told Salvador Dali to create a city by combining San Fransisco, Universal Studios, and Tijuana, it would be a dead-ringer for LA. I've had a couple not-so-normal experiences thus far, with a birthday party I went to yesterday taking the cake (I'm not sure if the pun is intended).

Andy was kind enough to invite me to his friends birthday party which was at a state park (wow grass! I haven't seen this stuff for a week!) so I headed over there and met the birthday gang in the section of the park that inhabited the remnants of the old LA Zoo. So we had a couple of picnic tables, covered in plastic happy birthday tablecloths, a grill and some beer, and we were enjoying it all in the old lion's den (I did a quick look-around to make sure they didn't leave any behind). I try not to question things anymore. Grilling in a lions den? Sure, why not?

The birthday celebration for this 25-year old gal included a balloon toss, a three-legged race, and probably a lot of other fun/strangely-immature activities that we never had the chance to get to. The balloon toss went off without a hitch, but my partner and I ended up winning. This was kind of weird for me because I saw that she bought gifts for the winners to pick out. So here I am, some random guy that just showed up, and now I'm taking her party favors. I considered, for a second, grabbing my silly-putty prize and bolting out of there (Haha! Suckers!). But I didn't. And I made a promise to myself to lose on the first round of the next activity.

In hindsight, I should have run away, because five minutes later, three Park Ranger SUVs screeched up to our den, literally out of nowhere, and unloaded the most vigilantic Park Rangers I have ever seen. Shit, I thought, first weekend in LA and I'm headed to Chino.

I can't tell you how lucky I am that I attended a dry campus in college. My learned and practiced cat-burglar like reflexes came into play as I quickly slid my beer away from myself at the table and adopted a glazed-over 'screw you cops' look on my face.

Captain Fun-kill came up to me and Andy (we were in the middle of a very serious game of ball-twapping with our newly won sticky-hands prizes) and looked me squarely in the eye and pointed to the drink in front of me.

Is this drink yours?

No. (mine was right next to it)

Then he asked Andy the same question. Andy said no. Andy got written up and recieved a court summons for proximity to an open alcoholic container in a state park. There was absolutely no method to this guys madness. But I was safe, so I didn't care as much after that.

I felt really bad for the birthday girl who was in tears at this point, and not because her party was absolutly ruined, but because she had two friends who were trying to argue legal rights with the park rangers, armed with iPhones and a stubborn tenacity embued by two-to-three Coors Lights.

So as the party was divided into two groups; one getting citations for drinking liquor, and the other waiting for this all to finish up because they were better liars, and the birthday girl crying in the consoling arms of her boyfriend, I had the sudden urge to start singing.

Haaaaapppyy Birthday toooo yoouuuuu....