My cousin Mary and I are three weeks apart and best friends. She’s not just a Forever Friend because we’re related and she wouldn’t be able to dodge me at family gatherings, but because we have been through a LOT together. If I have a disgusting joke to tell, I text her. If I’m having a bad day and need a laugh, I call her. If I need to blow off steam and laugh until I piss myself, I go out with her. She’s one of those friends who you can have a great time with whether you’re at a swanky new club, or a total dive bar that both our mothers would disapprove of. We have done so many crazy things and had so many wild adventures and some that are too horrifying to leave written proof of, but here is a tamer story.

Even though my cousin and I are both Colorado natives, we never tired of going out in downtown Denver. When I was working at DSW, weekends off were fleeting so when they came around, I took full advantage. One of the things we always enjoyed was renting a room downtown that we could stumble to safely after bar hopping. We liked the hype of getting ready in our room together and trying on outfits 42 times before landing on what we’d wear for the evening.

We rented a room at The Hotel Monaco, one of our favorite places to go since it’s within walking distance of so many fun bars and restaurants. Mary lived close to downtown so I would always meet her at her house so we could cab it from there. (This was before the days of Uber.) I left work that Friday, raced home to get my overnight bag, and met her at her house, excited to have two days off ahead of me. We then called a cab and headed to The Hotel Monaco. We got dolled up and had a great night on the town. I couldn’t even tell you what bars we hit up or what we did exactly but it was fun nonetheless. The only thing I recall is there was a lot of beer flowing. After drinking all night we decided we needed to eat our body weight in greasy food before passing out at our hotel. So we called another cab and had it take us to Denny’s because we are fancy like that. While there, we ordered our usual “drunk food” which consisted of french fries with a side of white gravy. Disgusting? Delicious? Probably both. Anyhow, after consuming 3000 calories in junk food, we called a cab.

As we stumbled into the back seat, Mary shouted an address at the cab driver and then we chitchat and discussed the highlights of our evening. The cab ride seemed to be taking a bit longer to get to the hotel than we thought, but in our state we didn’t pay much attention. As the cab driver stopped and told us the total for our ride, we paid him and opened our doors to realize, we were back at Mary’s. I looked at her dumbfounded and said, “Where did my car go?” And Mary said, “It’s back at the hotel. You know, the one we rented so we could drink without having to take an expensive cab ride back here!” Luckily, we were able to hail the same cab and had to explain to him we had given him Mary’s home address, not the address of the hotel. After about $50 in unnecessary cab rides we ended up back at our hotel. Now that people, is what I call drinking responsibly!