Friday Nights during your 30's- disco naps and cat baths

I remember that when I was in my 20's I couldn't wait until Friday night!!!  It was my pot of gold at the end of a rainbow during a week’s worth of dreary, rainy Monday thru Thursday's.  Celebrating life, love and a minimal salary with my girlfriends-wooopwooop!  Thinking back to those good old days when we would paint the town red on BOGO house vodka and/or tequila , but only if there was don pepe on the front of the bottle with his yo samity sam mustache such as this guy below.  Yes this was the good hang over quality ish that all newbie’s in the business world came to love and hate.  Love it cause its cheap…hate it cause it made you wake up next to a dude that sadly resembled this guy the next day.  No Mexican restaurant needed J


Now flash begrudgingly forward, here I am in my late 20's...okay early 30's...I am not here to play tit for tat with you people; but regardless my Friday's have become a godsend in their own right.  Granted, I am making a little more than in my 20's, emphasis on "little", but my today Friday's are just a fight to cram as much partying a humanly possible before Monday’s come to rear their disgusting head again.  Keep in mind that I barely make it alive to the end of the week as it is as I crawl, scrapple, and fight my way to the top of the slime bucket that is the "real world" (yes...this is the same "real world" that sounded so much more promising when we were in college; when the world was our oyster and we were oblivious to the fact that some hoe bag name Sallie Mae would soon be riding out coat tails and depleting our bank accounts). 


For each of us out there the term “partying” can have multiple meanings.  For one person it can mean kicking off your stilettos, ordering take out, and watching a marathon of My Fair Wedding on We TV.  For another it can mean kicking off their Aerosoles, cracking open a can of Natural Ice, and getting mentally riled up for a night of separating whites and colors for washin’.  For younger folk it means calling your friends at approximately noon on Friday (because that’s the time your brain shut down from work mode and has begun only daydreaming of you, leather skinny jeans, and a pink tube top on a dance floor fist pumpin to “single ladies” by Beyonce) and creating your invite list and setting a time and location for the nights festivities.  For those of us stuck in today, you may see the following as a familiar sequence of events:

*via bbm*

Fill in the blank friend: What you doin tonight?

Me: I don’t know? U?

Fill in the blank friend: Well we wanna do something, let’s do something!!!

Me: What is this something??? Are we talking cheap, baller, out till all hours or home before midnight?

Fill in the blank friend: How bout _____(insert name of “lounge” here)?

Me: Ooooo I don’t know…I mean it’s Friday and I don’t wanna be out till all hours, I got mad errands to run tomorrow and/or possible doctor’s appointment. I mean are we talking about 7pm? Do I have time for a disco nap?  Should I shower or cat bath?

Now if the last part seems unfamiliar let me put it in laymen’s terms.  Back in college disco naps, although thoroughly not necessary, were totally acceptable and celebrated.  They usually occurred after an 8am class before breakfast or lunch at 3pm.  In the early 30 years they are necessary prior to a Friday night anything.  Unless you are going straight to a happy hour which only happens when you’re in your 20’s because by Friday no one wants any of “this” (*lifting my hand from head to toe) to be seen in public because I barely can coordinate sock colors let alone a decent after work cocktail outfit unless planned at least a week in advance.

So back to a disco nap.  A disco nap can go one of two ways.  First way is successful meaning that you go home and run to bed with your work clothes on, set your cell phone alarm to wake you up 45 minutes later and then you jump into the shower and get ready for your night to begin.  Then there’s the unsuccessful route which has happened to me many times.  You run home and get to bed with your work clothes, you set the alarm for 45 minutes later, but somehow wake up at the end of 20/20 which then you come to terms with the fact that you will not be going out, text your friends and apologize for your oldness, put on your pj’s and call it a day.  I have sometimes even woken up the following morning to nasty texts and a husband looking at me questioning why I am still wearing my work clothes L 

If you extend said disco nap past 45 minutes, then a cat bath is in order. I have also implemented a cat bath if I need to be out the house by 7 or 8pm.  These aren’t happy hour timeslots, but the time allotted when you hang with older people because no reputable old person will be leaving their house past 9pm.  We don’t like line waits, crowds, or standing at a bar waiting behind Bob the keg stand king and his Barbie girlfriend waiting to purchase a beverage.  We’re like G.I. Janes…in and out before the enemy declares war.  The enemy here being drunken younger people who can’t handle their cheap, house liquor and spend their night bumping into you and swaying their arms in the air in carefree drunkenness….GOD I miss those days!

So whether your old, young, or in denial-one thing is clear!  Friday’s aren’t for the faint of heart.  Whatever your age is, you have to be ready for some kind of Olympic triathlon.  For me, its gettin in a little nap and using a baby wipe under the pits to make sure I’m out the house at a “decent” hour.  For you it may mean having time to buy something you obviously don’t fit into at Joyce Leslie, Rainbow, or Dots and going out on the town in an effort to find your “tonight” prince charming who seemed a lot hotter after 5 Jack n’Cokes.  Either way….TGIF!!!!