The Double Take

I’m tired of saying I’m sorry for not writing so let’s just all accept the fact that I have a life outside my blog and move on.

So school is officially over (if you’re in summer school I feel bad for you son I got 99 problems but school ain’t one) and you know what that means – it’s time to party every day that ends in a Y and make horrible, life-altering mistakes! Sometimes, summers are too much to handle. We’ve all been there. This is what I like to call The Double Take; going out 2 nights in a row and wondering how the fuck you are going to handle all that alcohol. Here’s a play-by-play.

3:00pm – You just got out of bed and your head is pounding. You reach up to your headboard and find out that Drunk You made one good call last night and it was leaving Sober You a water bottle.

4:00pm – You get out of bed and make yourself a whole pot of Kraft Dinner, all the while ignoring the glaring looks from your parents as you eat the whole thing on the couch out of a soup bowl while watching re-runs of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

5:00pm – You start getting texts from friends asking what you’re doing tonight and it is making you want to crawl through your phone and punch them in the face so they feel the pain you are currently enduring. At this point you cave and pop, like, seven Tylenols in the hopes that the swelling in your brain goes down. You also stare your mother in the face and say, “Why did you birth me? I hate it here.”

6:00pm – Someone FINALLY goes to the grocery store and buys you a Gatorade. You drink it and wonder if it’s actually maybe magic and then you shake your head and chuckle, “Hah, magic,” and then you wonder if you might still be drunk.

7:00pm – You panic and wonder if you’re working tonight. You go to check your phone but you can’t find it and then you end up furiously calling it and blaming your sisters for moving it. You then find it next to your bushes outside and think that you probably shouldn’t try to remember why it was left there.

7:07 – After finding your phone you forget what you were going to check and you just end up spending the next hour and a half on Reddit.

8:30pm – Your friends convince you to go out for a second night in a row and try to tell you it “won’t get too cray, Christine, we’re gonna leave at 1am, don’t worry” (spoiler alert: your friends are liars) so you take a shower and think “I should’ve done this when I first woke up, it’s so refreshing!” This is when you get what I like to call The Second Wind.

8:45pm – How should I do my hair? Is black eyeliner too harsh? Where did that white eyeshadow go? Should I do my makeup before drying my hair? Maybe I should curl it. Wow this eyeliner looks horrible. How did I get mascara all the way down there? This hairdryer is loud. I’M GONNA POP SOME TAAAGS ONLY GOT TWENNY DOLLAS IN MA POCKEEET. Oh shit where’d all my money go? Looks like it’s a Visa-sponsored night. Well now I’ve sweated off all my makeup. Ah, fuck it, let’s just go somewhere dark.

9:30pm – THIS SECOND WIND IS AWESOME, LET’S JUST START DRINKING NOW!

10:00pm – Your friend just picked you up and you are so fucking pumped. You’re gonna own tonight. Tonight is your night.

10:05pm – You text everyone you know and ask them if they’re hitting up [insert local bar's name here] tonight. They are, because you live in the West Island and there’s no where else to go. Duh. You go pick up some more people and get the show on the road.

10:30pm – You get to the bar; it’s not super packed but there’s a good amount of people. Your friends look at you and ask “What are we drinking?” Then someone says: “shots!” and you say: “shit.”

11:30pm – You’re four tequila shots and a half-pitcher of sangria in and you’re feeling awesome. Invincible. No one can get on your level because it is unreachable.

11:32pm – You’re in the handicapped stall of what you’re pretty sure is the girls’ bathroom with four other girls trying to convince them that the guy you’re macking on doesn’t have a girlfriend. None of you are peeing. Just chatting.

12:00am – You just declared a dance-off with someone who you’re pretty sure made it to the semi-finals of So You Think You Can Dance Canada and you are losing hard.

12:30am – You lost the dance-off but you laugh it off because you’re drunk and nothing can embarrass you! Luckily, you meet a bunch of cute guys who are so drunk they think your dancing is incredible and you sit at their table. One of them says, “I think we should do tequila!” and you’re like, “I love tequila!” even though you’re pretty sure that if you even watch someone take another shot of tequila you’ll vomit. One of your friends says, “Nah thanks,” and you violently scream at them until they take a shot. Because that’s what friends are for.

1:00am – You’re back in the bathroom stall with your four girlfriends crying because the guy you were macking on’s girlfriend just showed up and you hate him and all other men on the planet. This is when the You Go Girl happens. All four of your friends are simultaneously wiping tears off your face or smoothing down your hair or trying to pry your drink out of your death grip all the while saying things like, “Dude, boys are horrible, let’s just have fun!” or “YOU KNOW WHAT? WE DON’T NEED BOYS!” or “Let’s pretend we’re lesbians.” There’s usually one friend whose face says, “Why are we in here? Why is no one peeing?” while her mouth is saying, “Guys, I think we should leave now …” but people generally ignore her.

1:30am – You’re at the bar to get the customary You Go Girl shots and you’ve met an old dude and he is buying you SHOTS. MORE SHOTS. This is generally when you start to question your life choices but who cares because SHOTS.

1:32am – Old guys are creepy.

1:45am – Girl Dancing. The kind when all of your friends are dancing in an impenetrable circle and anytime a boy even looks at you, you put your finger in his face and shout, “NO!”

1:50am – You’re all dancing with different boys.

2:00am – You all simultaneously decide the boys you’re dancing with are skeezy and go back to Girl Dancing.

2:30am – You’re sitting in a booth with your best friend having the most amazing heart-to-heart about how much you love each other and how you will never ever stop being friends no matter how hard life gets. This is the most genuine part of your night and you will never forget this because friends are truly everything.

2:45am – Someone mentions an after-party and everyone is all of a sudden SUPER PUMPED.

3:00am – On the way to the after-party you and your two friends pass out, creating a messy pile of limbs in your best friend’s backseat. She immediately decides that you aren’t going to the after-party.

3:15am – You smell McDonald’s, wake up from your drunken stupor to the surprise of everyone else in the car and yell, “GET ME A BIG MAC TRIO.”

3:17am – You are done your Big Mac trio and immediately fall asleep once again.

3:25am – You are finally home once again. You see a water bottle on your headboard, grab it and fill it with (apparently undrinkable) Montreal tap water. You set your alarm for 10:00am but you know 100% that is not happening so you laugh all alone, in your bed, and fall asleep like a little drunk baby giraffe.

50 Shades of Cheating

Today we’re gonna talk about cheating and all of its forms. Cheating on a significant other breaks a lot of rules. It’s funny how in every other aspect of life it’s generally forgiven. You cheated on your diet? Whatever, everyone’s allowed a cheat day, right? You cheated on a test? It’s okay, you didn’t have time to study and if you had you would’ve passed it anyway! You cheated in Monopoly? That fucking iron had it coming, though. But cheating on someone, a person, a human being, always seems way worse than any of these things. It may be because you’ve put more time and effort and love into your relationship than Monopoly. Although, I have participated in some pretty emotional Monopoly games (you can send me to jail but you CAN’T TAKE AWAY MY SPIRIT GODDAMMIT!)

1) The emotional cheater

You’re generally very attached to your significant other. You do a lot of stuff together but something in your relationship just isn’t right. Sometimes he/she says/does things and you just stand there like “What the fuck kind of crack are you smoking?” It could be they don’t really get along with your parents, or your friends. They don’t catch on to your sarcasm, they don’t understand Reddit, you’re constantly pausing movies to explain jokes to them, they have a weird laugh, they’re not nice to waiters, they eat too many egg rolls in one sitting, etc. But you guys have a really good sex life. Like really good. Like mind-blowing, cigarette-inducing sex on the daily. But then you just wanna fall asleep right after so they don’t start talking to you because they’ll try to tell you a story that’s “SUPER FUNNY OMG YOU’LL LAUGH SO HARD,” and then you find yourself forcing laughter in that sleepy “I’m tired, we should get to sleep, but yeah babe you’re really funny, I love hearing stories about your 50-year-old coworkers’ kids, you can tell me all about them tomorrow. After we sleep. Good night. Seriously, good night” kind of way. So you find someone who’s funny, who understands your jokes, who bonds with you on that other level. And yeah, sometimes things get sexual but you know that it’ll never happen because you already have the sex-life part of a relationship covered. Sometimes you wonder if you should just break up with amazing-sex person and go for great-personality person but you just can’t because you’ve already devoted time and effort to amazing-sex person. And you have amazing sex. Like … amazing … sex.

2) The physical cheater

You know it’s wrong. Like more wrong than anything you’ve ever done. But you can’t help it cause it just feels so … good. Your SO is an amazing person. They’re nice to old people and children, they volunteer at soup kitchens and animal shelters. They listen to what you say and you could literally talk for hours. But something goes wrong when it comes to sex. You like it kinky, they want vanilla. You want to be spontaneous, they like to schedule it in their phones at appropriate sex-having times. You like dirty talk, they don’t make a sound. Ever. You like to talk about it openly, they regularly seem embarrassed about the fact that you guys even do it. So you find someone who has no qualms about helping you cheat. You meet up at 3am; it happens in cars or alleys or parks so your sheets don’t smell like them. You sneak around and try to keep up appearances by showering your girl/boyfriend with gifts and compliments. This is the WWII of cheating, but you’re finally getting what you want. It’s the best of both worlds. But you’re a horrible person.

3) The mental cheater

This form is mainly employed by women. And rightfully so. Your guy is on top of you, sweaty and hairy and generally gross. It’s been a long workday, you’re stressed about school, you keep wondering if you turned the stove off after you finished making dinner, he kinda smells like a weird mix of garlic and axe shampoo. You love him, you really do, but for a second, you close your eyes. And all of a sudden, the garlic/axe aroma is almost tolerable. Because now you’re fucking that cute barista who smiles at you every morning and knows your order by heart. Or the mailman. Or your personal trainer. Or Chris Hemsworth. Or Harvey Specter. Or both … and you kinda like it.

Now we get into what to do if:

1) You’re the cheater

Welcome, horrible person! You now fall under the “Once a cheater, always a cheater” philosophy that seems to be true in the eyes of so many delusional people. The truth is there are a lot of reasons why people cheat and making a general statement like that helps no one. But don’t always be a cheater. Learn from your mistakes. If you decide to stay with the person, you better stop cheating on them and, yeah, if it happens again then you definitely need to re-evaluate your life choices. If you decide you need to break up with them, do it. Don’t live through a horrible relationship where you need to sneak around and keep secrets.

2) You’ve been cheated on

Seriously, I can say this with complete certainty, do NOT get drunk and try to tackle them into a bonfire. You’re drunk and that’s a fire and you should definitely not go near it. Honestly, I’ve always been of the thought that if you find out you’ve been cheated on and you decide to stay with the person you are weak and spineless and you will go nowhere in life and you generally suck. But yes, there are a lot of factors. Love conquers all, right?

February 14th, National Singles Awareness Day

It’s almost Valentine’s Day so naturally I had to wake up from the dead and write something. I’ve just been really busy watching documentaries about online dating and spending money on alcohol. Regardless, I figured I would bring to you, during this joyous February, a list of things that will help you survive being single on Vday. Voila.

1) Create a folder in your pictures labeled “Article Pictures – Charbonneau Commission” or something boring like that

Fill it with pictures of cats and look at it when you’re sad.

2) Create a folder in your pictures labeled “Haircuts I Want”

Fill it with pictures of Adam Levine and look at it when you’re … you know … ;)

3) When you see your exes, pretend that you are on the phone

You are more important than them, you have important phone calls to make and important people to talk to. It’s just that sometimes these important moments don’t come up when you’re walking through the mall in your Sunday sweats so we can fake it a bit. Just this once.

4) Don’t do anything alone

You’ll read all these articles about going to the movies alone and going on a bike trip alone and going to a wine-making class alone but why the fuck would I want to be left alone with my single-girl thoughts any more than usual? Call up another single friend and you guys can watch the Discovery Channel in your pajamas all day until you’re forced to get up (only get up if it’s to get wine.)

5) Listen to a lot of Taylor Swift, and then listen to a lot of Beyonce and defend both of them to the grave

No one says shit about Taylor Swift or Beyonce unless they want to get punched in the face. They’re fierce and they’re the best. Learn the Single Ladies dance and whip that shit out in da clubz. It won’t impress anyone but you’ll feel empowered as fuck.

6) Be in a relationship with yourself!

I can’t believe I just said that and I kinda feel like I’m writing for Woman’s World but it’s true. Fuck it, you don’t have to buy the 75-pack box of condoms at Costco anymore so you might as well use the money to get a fucking pedicure or something.

7) Go to the gym

This one is optional and can be followed loosely if anything more important comes up. Say, like … a wine night.

8) Don’t look at pictures of Mama June from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

You will break down sobbing, quietly whispering, “How does she have a boyfriend and I don’t?” and it will be embarrassing for both you and your father, who witnessed this when you thought he wasn’t looking.

9) Use being single as an excuse to get drunk

This is honestly the best excuse to get you AND all of your friends crazy drunk. Just tell them you wanna “live it up” while you’re single so one day when you “settle down” (lol) you’ll have some good mems to look back on.

10) Have no-strings-attached sex

Find someone you generally hate and have sex with them. You will keep your needs satisfied without running the risk of actually falling for him. The most excellent of plans.

11) Don’t eat your feelings

DON’T. There’s nothing worse than going into the corner store for a Red Bull and getting to the cash with a bag of peanut butter M&Ms, a king-size Crispy Crunch, a 2L bottle of Orange Crush, chocolate-covered pretzels and one of those pre-packaged sandwiches that looks like it’s been sitting there since Tamagotchi’s were still a thing. Eat an apple, Jesus.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the single ladies. Neither I nor wine will ever leave you because you “yell too much.”

60 Things I learned in 2012

1) Never make new years resolutions and then break them literally five minutes later.

2) Sometimes you need to eat carrots. Fact of life.

3) Chipotle sauce goes great with literally everything. Sandwiches, vegetables, french fries, chips, literally everything.

4) Don’t have more than four shots of tequila in a row.

5) When there is a bench and a soccer net blocking your way down a street don’t get out of the car and move them because you will end up with a scar on your foot forever reminding you that your drunken strength is not trustworthy.

6) Don’t trust boys named Tyler no matter how much they resemble Jamie Oliver.

7) Always print out Google Maps directions instead of relying on the shitty Blackberry Google Maps app. You will get lost in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu for a really long time.

8) If you strain your quad in practice, don’t play the next weekend. Also don’t play if you have a cold. Also try not to get heat stroke the last game of the season.

9) No matter how well your four-year-old cousin convinces you he knows the ski hill really well, keep an eye on him. Even if he did like riding back up the hill on a ski-doo.

10) Passive-aggressive tweets are okay as long as the person you’re tweeting about doesn’t follow you or if they are really vague.

11) Tweeting about boys is also allowed.

12) Instagram is really fun.

13) Sometimes you will see prostitutes and fist fights between plaintiffs and defendants at the Montreal courthouse. Don’t be scared.

14) Sometimes lawyers at the courthouse don’t want to talk to you. Tell them you work for The Gazette and if they start asking anymore questions just run away.

15) Apparently taking pictures of court documents is legal if they don’t see you doing it.

16) Don’t ever fall for a guy you meet at a bar.

17) When you’re in the gym locker room … don’t. Look. Up.

18) Before you wear heels downtown, reeeeeeally think about it first.

19) If you see a fight break out in front of Reggie’s, don’t step in the blood. They don’t appreciate that.

20) If you eat a whole 20-pack of Timbits you will feel sick afterwards.

21) Don’t climb over the fence at Manoir. The waiter WILL yell at you and maybe take away your sangria.

22) Studying is overrated.

23) When copy editing, read it three times over, then Ctrl+F the word “and” to check that there are no oxford commas. You will always find one.

24) The only thing worse than drunk tweeting is drunk facebooking and the only thing worse than drunk facebooking is drunk texting.

25) Never underestimate cheap wine.

26) Also never underestimate the power of Kraft Dinner.

27) Don’t cut english muffins with butcher knives when you’re drunk. Band-Aids on Band-Aids on Band-Aids.

28) After-parties are fun, always go to them.

29) Libraries are horrible.

30) Don’t be afraid to be honest to your friends. If they’re your true friends they will appreciate/understand it.

31) Watch the sunset and the sunrise at least once. Preferably at a beach.

32) Bachelor parties. Find them.

35) Hangovers magically disappear with chicken noodle soup and gatorade.

36) If you give bouncers $20 they become the nicest people on the planet.

37) If a boy puts his hand on your leg in a movie theatre you should probably hold his hand instead of awkwardly letting it sit there.

38) Tell someone when you like them as soon as you know. It will save you a lot of time wondering how they feel.

39) You can never watch too much Say Yes To The Dress.

40) Don’t take religion classes.

41) Getting drunk after your last exam feels like if heaven had a heaven and you lived on a cloud in heaven’s heaven.

42) If you’re having a bad day – Lil Wayne.

43) Don’t drive on a flat tire. Also, learn this lesson the first time so that you don’t do it again three other times. Also learn what a tire pressure light looks like.

44) The best version of myself is Sangria Christine. I love Sangria Christine.

45) Manoir salad. It might look like someone did some inappropriate stuff on a bunch of lettuce but it’s amazing.

46) Mitt Romney is the devil.

47) Gerald Tremblay is also the devil.

48) Moths and birds will forever remain the worst insects/animals on the planet.

49) Don’t ever put your phone in your bra and then jump into a pool.

50) It’s okay to secretly plan your escape route from random places if there were to all of a sudden be a zombie apocalypse.

51) Don’t let your dad hold your touch-screen phone.

52) Help out the drunk girls in the bar bathroom. We’ve all been there.

53) Don’t chase a guy who’s not chasing back.

54) Don’t leave your unfinished lunches from work in weird places in your room. You’ll find them later. And it will not be pretty.

55) Spend one day a week in your pajamas for at least 6 hours.

56) Sisters are underrated.

57) Your friends will make fun of you if you buy green pants but wear them with pride. Even when they ask things like “Can you teach me how to become a leprachaun like you?” and “Where did you leave your pot of gold?!”

58) Remember where you came from (aka when you’re in Nova Scotia, drink Keith’s.)

59) Don’t be health-conscious when it comes to bacon. I don’t care if turkey bacon tastes the same IT DOESN’T COME FROM A PIG SO IT IS AUTOMATICALLY AN ABOMINATION.

60) In Honey Boo Boo we trust.

Why having girlfriends is more important than having boyfriends

I’m supposed to be writing an article about a lawsuit against a popular landscaping company right now. But guess what? School is for chumps (I’m joking, school is actually very important.) Although looking through lawsuits makes me feel like Rachel Zane, I’m going to forgo the writing of the article and write this instead.

1) Girls know what to say/do

Look at it this way. You’re having a bad day; your hair doesn’t look right, you have a pimple right in the middle of your forehead and your face is so greasy it looks like you exfoliate with vegetable oil, you went to school and paid five dollars to park for a 20-minute class, you’re freaking out about that online class you took that was supposed to be easy and to top things off, your local pie place does not have the FUCKING KIND OF PIE YOU WANT AND YOU’RE FUCKING PISSED. That is where your best girl comes in. She can tell you in a split second that pimples are not forever, boys are fucking stupid and there are other pie places on the West Island. She’ll go out, buy a bottle of wine and you can watch Love, Actually multiple times until you feel like a real person again. Girlfriends can take away the worst of your pain and remind you that, hey, you’re a sexy motherfucker and you aren’t gonna let a piece of pie slow you down in life. You’re better than that. You’re better than pie. Fucking pie. Not a lot of people are, but you .. you’re totally better than pie.

2) Girls know how to drink

I know, girls don’t know how to drink. But that’s exactly what makes them so good at drinking. If you go out drinking with a guy he’s either not going to get drunk, he’ll hit on other girls and ignore you, he’s gonna suddenly have standards or he’ll need to work the next day. If you tell a girlfriend that you’re having a bad week and you need to go out, the whole night is suddenly about you. They call in sick to work, take out the $60 they have in their bank account and look you directly in the eyes and say, “Dude, shit’s gonna go down tonight.” There will be drama and there will be regrets and there will be guys who smell really good, so good that you need to make out with them in a private booth as your friends cheer you on from the bar. You will wake up the next morning feeling like shit but at least you can think about things other than your horrible day/week. You can think about your friends crying over spilled vodka, that creepy guy who was insistent on letting you know he owned a 2001 Civic “but it has a really great spoiler and I just got a roof rack for it, so you should totally come look at it”, the girl in the bathroom who poured her whole life out to you and then ended the conversation with “I’m gonna text that motherfucker” no matter how hard you pleaded with her not to, that friend of yours who danced with a forty-year-old who you’re pretty sure was homeless, that cute bartender who took $35 off your tab because your friends spent so much fucking money, that friend who bought weed off of someone outside and continued to yell “DUDE, I’M BUYING WEED RIGHT NOW. THIS GUY JUST GAVE ME WEED!” despite the fact that there were cops everywhere, the fact that you smoked half a pack of cigarettes and didn’t give a fuck and the guy who bought you five shots of liquid cocaine thinking you were going to sleep with him (you wanted to, but you didn’t – you have standards girl!)

3) You can tell a girl anything because, chances are, they’ve done worse

Very recently, one of my guy friends hooked up with a girl in her car after she had chugged half a bottle of Captain Morgan and smoked a lot of illegal drugs. My immediate thought was, “Holy shit, she gives girls a bad name.” But the truth is, I’ve done worse. I shot-gunned a beer in front of the place I work at while there were still people inside. I’ve played drinking games inside a car with six rugby players. I’ve gotten kicked out of a Wal-Mart for physically fighting someone. So who am I to judge?

4) Girls hate boys

Simple as that. Regardless of what a boy does to you, your best girlfriend will always be there for you because boys are generally stupid. Girls are too, sometimes. And I’m assuming, if you’re a guy, that your best guy friend will be there for you too. But girls can go on and off. If you’re fighting for a guy who is not worth your time, your friend will tell you. But if you two ever get together, she will be there with the fucking wedding rings writing her maid of honor speech. Seeing you happy makes her happy and seeing you sad makes her sad.

5) Girls like dancing

Boys don’t. And if they do, don’t trust them.

So next time you find yourself in a rut about not having a boyfriend, think about all the amazing things your girlfriends do for you, including letting you watch Twilight and text boys as you fall asleep in their parents’ bed after drinking two bottles of cheap champagne, or letting you sleep in their basement after crying your guts out over Marley and Me. Girlfriends are the bomb.

The am-I-in-my-twenties test

I recently read a blog post called Twenty something ways to know you’re twenty something. Here are twenty something ways I know I’m twenty something.

1) Sometimes I wake up hungover on Thursdays. Thursdays. What the actual fuck.

2) I don’t take anything seriously. Yeah I take school seriously but anything other than that I always treat with a level of seriousness that would make Cheech and Chong look like the co-presidents of the United States.

3) Except boys. If I get rejected like a boy it’s like the world has blown up. I automatically start thinking about how many cats I should adopt to get the ball rolling and how much bird seed I should buy and what park bench I should urinate on to claim as my own.

4) I stay out until 4 a.m. when I start work at 9 a.m. I’ve been told multiple times by my parents that this phase will not last long so I plan on taking so much advantage of it until I decide that I’m too old to keep it up.

5) I buy the most ridiculous things. Crop top? I totally need a crop top. Green pants? I LOVE THE COLOUR GREEN. White blazer? This doesn’t make me look like Ellen Degeneres! This dress is too short but it’s super cute and it’s the last one? I’ll wear shorts under it. No space/proper circulation in my room for candles? Buy all the candles on markdown, they all smell so good, they will definitely smell good if I light all of them at the same time. You want to buy a CD? Why don’t you just download it? I like that one song that they sing, I will definitely like the other 11 on here.

6) My room is a disaster zone. I actually haven’t looked under my bed in three months. On my floor right now is probably half of my entire wardrobe, my hair dryer/straightener/curling iron/hot rollers, definitely over 30 books, all of my rugby equipment, about 15 water bottles, a random cookbook from back when I decided I wanted to learn how to cook and about 50 assorted pens/pencils/highlighters. I don’t spend much time in here unless I’m sleeping.

7) I still live with my parents and sometimes I fear I will never leave. I know it’s not that terrifying when you’re 21, but I will most likely be a 30-year-old woman who lives in my parents’ basement and has a dog and everyday my mom will take my dog down the street to meet me at the bus stop when I get home from work like it’s my child or something. I’ll dress it up for Halloween and refer to it as my little baby. Or I’ll move out and cry for my mommy every night.

8) Everything is slutty on Halloween. Be a nerd! A slutty nerd! Be a camel! A slutty camel! Little house on the prairie?? Slutty little house on the prairie! Baseball player? SLUTTY BASEBALL PLAYER! And so on.

9) I’ve worked the same minimum-wage job for the past five years and it doesn’t bother me that much. As long as I get paid every two weeks and I don’t have to clean up pee I consider myself successful in my employment.

10 ) I regularly use hashtags in real life, and my favourite one is “hashtag first world/white-girl problems!” I realize that it’s very annoying and most people want to cunt-punch me after I say it but it just slips out (like I slipped outta your mom last night AYYOOO!)

11) Sexting. Sexting is like a rite of passage as a twenty-year-old. If you aren’t sexting someone on a biweekly basis then what are you doing with your life? There’s nothing better than being at work and getting a text so sexually hilarious that you need to take a breather in the staffroom before you attempt to look anybody in the eye ever again in your life. It can be fun, but never send pictures. Never. Send. Pictures. If you do, you’re a fucking idiot.

12) I update Facebook like it’s the cure for cancer when I’m drunk. Everything gets updated; statuses, check-ins, pictures, comments. It’s embarrassing, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

13) I’m always on my phone, regardless of where I am. It is attached to me on a semi-permanent basis and I love it and I would never do anything to hurt it. Well, maybe drunkenly jumping into a pool while it was in my bra wasn’t the best thing I could do for it, but that all worked out and we’re back together now.

14) There are so many things we need to know about dating. When do I ask him out? Do I ask him out or does he ask me out? How do I know if this is a date or not? What do I wear? What do I say? Is it okay to talk to him about my weird obsession with turtles or is that more of a second-date kinda thing? When should I sleep with him? 3 dates? 5 dates? 10 dates? First date? Should I bring condoms or does that make me look like a slut? Should I go crazy or keep it vanilla? Do I call him after? Does he call me after? What if he doesn’t call me after? What if he’s seeing more than one girl? Am I allowed to ask him that? Should I be seeing other guys? When does this become official? Do I have to talk to him about it or should he talk to me about it? What if he doesn’t want a relationship? Am I gonna scare him? .. These are all just examples, not based on my personal life at all, moving along ..

15) I order Starbucks drinks that take five minutes to say. No one needs an unsweetened iced caramel macchiato with three shots of espresso, three and a half pumps of caramel, with one package of splenda and a shot of half-and-half. Why do we insist on drinking this? Whyyy are you so good but so expensive?

16) I tweet everything I do and I’m not really that ashamed of it. I hated Twitter when I first got it but now I kinda like it. It’s like Facebook without the pressure of constantly having interesting things to say. I can literally tweet that I’m eating pizza. Or that I wanna go dancing #shitgirlssay.

17) I graduated high school five years ago and I talk about it like it was 50 years ago. “Oh my God guys do you remember that kid they used to lock in the quad in the basement when he got angry?! Wow, they don’t do that anymore? Hahahaha times sure have changed!”

18) Going out for dinner at a BYOW. I love bring your own wine places. It has this certain je-ne-sais-quoi, classy-on-a-budget feeling that you can’t get anywhere else. We get to dress up somewhat and maybe even wear heels if we’re feelin’ it. Also, it’s a great pre-drink.

19) I think about dropping out of school and moving to Australia everyday of my life; how romantic it would be, just backpacking, meeting new and exciting people. Then I realize that there are spiders there the size of ants that can kill you and I’m poor as fuck.

20) I feel like there’s so much pressure to make 20 a great one but I can’t really think of anything .. maybe that’s one of the things that makes me twenty-something.

How to get free drinks from boys who think you’re going to sleep with them

If you’re a girl, chances are you’ve gotten free drinks before. This is because of the longstanding tradition of girls becoming super-sluts when they’re drunk. Not gonna lie, if a guy became ten times more likely to do my laundry and clean my room if he was intoxicated, I would buy him any drink in the world a million times over. I went out with my friends Saturday night and only spent $25, here’s how you can too.

1) Stand alone at the bar

I know this is risky, because what if the bartender comes up to you and asks for your order and then you’re just standing there like “Oh, it’s okay, I’m just waiting for a guy to hit on me so he can buy it for me. Move along, kind sir.” But that’s why you have to move quickly. Look at literally any guy standing at the bar. This shouldn’t be too hard because guys like standing next to the bar; it’s easier to order drinks and look like they’re richer than they actually are. Do the whole elevator-eyes thing and flip your hair around a bit. Sometimes, if I’m already kinda drunk, I’ll even wave at them. Literally anything to get them interested in you. Do a fucking handstand for God’s sake, just get that guy over to you. Generally he’ll ask something like “Why are you standing all alone?!” and you don’t even have to answer! All you have to do is bite your lip, giggle and look away from him like you’re embarrassed. BAM free drink. My favourite is the “What are you drinking?” because most guys think you’ll say rum and coke, or vodka cranberry or amaretto sour or something girly like that. Sometimes I like to freak them out and say double Johnnie Walker Blue Label on the rocks. That only worked once though, so use it carefully.

2) Make friends with people who weren’t poor like you and got bottle service

Never have I been more excited than when someone came up to me at our local bar and said “Hey, mamacita, I gotta bottle ova there, wanna come share it witcho boy?” I was already drunk so I didn’t really care about his horrible enunciation skills. Naturally I rallied up all my friends before going over there because you always share the love no matter what. Never leave a girl behind. Needless to say, these guys were all 40-year-old Mexicans who still dressed like they were in their early twenties and did not have any idea how to behave around people who were actually 20. We got a couple drinks and as soon as I felt a large, greasy hand on my lower back I pretended someone texted me and told all of them that my friend fell in the toilet and I needed to save her. But, the point of this story is that my friends and I all got at least 3 free drinks each and all we had to do was be mildly interested in four completely silent latinos for 20 minutes. Night successful!

3) Pretend to be interested in things that boys are interested in

This past Wednesday I was at our favourite bar and near the end of the night we met four guys from Calgary who all turned out to be pilots. At this point, I wanted to have some fun so the next thing that came out of my mouth was “Wow, I fly planes too!” because really, I plan on never seeing these people ever again. All of a sudden I had three guys buying me vodka cranberries and shots of JD. They didn’t even question my blatant lie. I also told them I coached tennis and drove a motorcycle. The moral of this story is don’t be afraid to lie about anything if you want free drinks. However, make sure these are people you will never see again in your life. The city I grew up in is really tiny; if you lie to a regular, they will fact check.

4) Make friends with the owner

I went to a bar downtown this Saturday and before we walked in my friends were all, “This bar looks kinda lame.” Little did they know, the owner was standing outside. I had been there before so I corralled all of them inside and all of a sudden we were having an amazing night. Next thing you know we’re standing next to the DJ booth requesting songs and taking shots with the owner. At the end of the night, our tab was $72, and that’s just what we ordered ourselves, not to mention all the free stuff we got from the owner. The DJ walks by, grabs the receipt and cuts the price almost in half. Next thing you know, the owner is hugging us saying “So, is this bar still lame, girls??” and immediately we’re all melting and shouting “NEVER! WE LOVE THIS BAR! WE WILL COME HERE EVERY WEEK FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!” So maybe next time you’re standing outside a bar, call it lame and then go inside. Apparently that works.

5) Send your friend in

We have one friend in our group that we will always sacrifice for free drinks. We’ll send her into a large group of guys and then all of a sudden we look up and we all have two free drinks. You have to be really careful with this, because sometimes guys aren’t super down with buying drinks for four girls, but you have to be kind of included. Talk to his friends, go up and talk to your friend, integrate yourself but don’t flirt with him. Leave that up to your friend. She’s a professional. And, as I said before, you never leave a girl behind, you always mention your friend and how she is also without a drink. Most of the time they fall for it.

6) Get a boyfriend

Apparently this works well too.

 

So next time you spend your entire paycheck on scarves and hairspray (guilty) just remember these tips when you hit the town and you’ll be drunk as a skunk in no time!