Adaptability

For weeks, Katie and I planned to see Man of La Mancha at the Shreveport Opera. Our friend John played Pedro, and our other friend Nate was a prisoner/horse. Very exciting stuff.

Kelly (loudly, and to an assembled crowd): Nate’s starring in Man of La Mancha!

Nate: I’m a horse.

Kelly: He’s the MAIN HORSE.

But then our other friend John told us his band Everyday Hemingway was playing that same night at a bar in Bossier. At first we were worried we’d miss it, but he said they wouldn’t start until after the LSU game was over at about 10:00, which was perfect. Katie couldn’t go; her husband Scot played Harry Cooper in East Bank Theatre’s production of Night of the Living Dead (clearly, we’s some theater-lovin’ mofos), and his cast party was that night. But that was no big deal, either, since several people indicated they were interested in going to see John’s band. I told John I would be there with bells on.

I don’t think either of us knew, at the time, how literal I was being.

So Katie and I went to the opera, and it was a smashing success. The problem came after the opera, standing in the lobby, when my phone started buzzing with text messages. Every single one of my friends punked out on going to see Everyday Hemingway.

Every.
Single.
One.

Briefly, I thought about just going on home. But a) I told John I was coming to hear them play and b) I really wanted to go.

Fact: If you are 32 and single, and you wait for someone to accompany you to everything you want to go to, you won’t be doing much.

So I got my haughty hackles up and said fine! I’ll just go ALL BY MYSELF. I go to stuff by myself all the time! I threw my pashmina over my shoulder and strutted out to Fiona in the parking lot.

Oh, this might be a good point at which to elaborate on what I was wearing. I’d just been to the opera, remember:

Black long-sleeved off-the-shoulder top
Winter-white wool wide-legged trousers
Four-inch pointy-toed black slingbacks
Roughly seventeen tons of bling-y jewelry
Bright pink pashmina
Ballet-pink patent leather Anya Hindmarch clutch
(So what if it’s Anya Hindmarch for Target? I guess I buy Anya Hindmarch for Target so Anya Hindmarch can buy Hermes.)

I’d never heard of the bar, Muddy Waters, before, but John said it was on Benton Road in Bossier, about three miles north of I-220. Whatever. I know where Benton Road is. How hard could it be to find this place?

Said the girl with no sense of direction.

So I drove…and drove…and drove…like, halfway to Birmingham, people! OK, not really, but a long freaking way. Like, damn near to Benton. I kept thinking I must’ve passed it, and I cussed Muddy Waters up one side and down the other for not having a proper sign.

Then I saw the sign. Oh, do they ever have a sign.

Y’all, the Vegas strip ain’t got nothin’ on Muddy Waters’s sign.

I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

And much like when I went to see Erik in the hospital on Friday wearing my zombie cheerleader finery, and as my Chucks hit the parking lot asphalt it suddenly occurred to me that OH MY GOD, I am at the HOSPITAL dressed like A ROTTING CORPSE, and holy eff, THIS MAY VERY WELL BE THE MOST TASTELESS THING I HAVE EVER DONE, I stepped out of my teeny-tiny low-emissions Honda Fit amidst what resembled an dealership of American automobiles for men with Size Issues, and only then did I realize that…

I may have made an error.

Yes, I go to stuff by myself all the time. Stuff like exhibit openings. Not bars. Not redneck bars in Bossier.

There is literally no way I could have looked more out of place. Like, I could have walked up in there flossing my “Obama in ‘08″ t-shirt with a rainbow flag sticker on my forehead, and it wouldn’t have made things any worse.

For one split second, I considered turning on my well-shod heel, getting back in Fiona and driving home as fast as she could take me. Once there, I would Facebook John and be all, like, “I’m sooooo sorry I didn’t make it! (cough, cough) I don’t know what happened (cough), but I just got so sick at the opera! (cough cough)…”

And then I thought, oh no you don’t!

I have plenty of character flaws, but I pride myself on being the kind of girl who, when she says she’s going to Do a Thing, Does That Thing. Second, I may look like I was born going to operas, but the fact is I grew up in the middle of Nowhere, East Texas. I can rock a pair of cowboy boots and pull a trailer just as well as anyone in Muddy Waters; maybe better.

And I repeated these words to myself, like a mantra, all the way through the door: You can drive a tractor. You can drive a tractor. You can drive a tractor.

Well, you know what happened next, right? I didn’t even have my ass all the way on a barstool before some drunk was slobbering all over me.

But it turned out just fine. I got rid of the drunk, ordered a Diet Coke and a Blue Moon and made friends with a very nice (and not drunk) biker dude sitting next to me. As it turned out, my new biker friend likes opera and has actually seen more of them than I have. He really liked Everyday Hemingway too, and when it was all said and done, I had a great time.

But the next time I go to Muddy Waters?

This girl’s wearing jeans.

Your dressed-to-kill
Kel