In light of my very near upcoming birthday, I am going to disclose the happenings of my somewhat disastrous, highly amusing, and utterly fun birthday weekend last year. I convinced Robanga to fly halfway across the country with me for my birthday, FOR THE WEEKEND ONLY. The trip was major for a couple of reasons:
- We had never flown together before
- Neither one of us had ever been as far west as we were going on this trip
- We had less than 72 hours to party
- I was literary going for the sole purpose of getting some from a recently departed flame
SN: I am ABSOLUTELY terrified of flying. I grew up in Europe, thus I have been on countless flights. Though I never really “liked” flying, there is one instance in particular that forever changed flying for me. The incident that occurred was on a flight from Rota, Spain back to La Maddelena , Sardengna (an island of Italy), where I lived at the time. Everything was seemed usual on the flight until the oxygen masks came down at the same time that the pressure dropped tremendously in the plane and the plane seemed to be in freefall. I was flying with my mom and she grabbed my hand and said, “You know how much I love you, right baby?” I was completely in shock and suddenly the plane darted up and it was like being on a ride where you can’t raise your head off of the headrest. Then we were back at regular altitude and flying smoothly again. I think the pilot made an error, but it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life! I haven’t been the same since.
In 2013, my birthday fell on a Friday. That Thursday night, Robanga drove from North Carolina to Norfolk, Virginia so that we could already be together for our Friday flight that left at 1:00 P.M. from Richmond, Virginia. She arrived around midnight and there were PLEANTY of party favors going around. We stayed up ALL night, and I had to go to class at 10:00-10:50 that Friday morning. The plan was to leave Norfolk immediately after class and drive to Richmond, arriving there in just enough time to make our flight. Well, due to lack of sleep, I personally was dragging ass, so after class, when I should be in GO mode, I was uber sluggish (not to mention that I ran into a former professor and she wanted to make sure she gave me a birthday button pin to wear on my jacket). I was walking super slowly to my car and that was the first thing that made us off schedule. On the way to Richmond, we were passing party favors and I was driving. The “low fuel” light came on in my car, but I kept driving because we could not afford to waste more time and we only a few exits away from the airport. Well, we ran out of gas in Henrico County, a Richmond suburb. The officer was actually really cool once I told him that it was my birthday and we were trying to make our flight. Oh, I also have to add that I did NOT have my license at the time. The officer drove me to the nearest gas station and it was packed!! The officer pulled to the side of the gas station and told me to go wait behind someone that was already at the pump so I could fill my red gas container up. The man that was already pumping his gas and his uniform told me that he was a Marine. He looked at me and smiled and told me that he was just going to let me fill my container up on him because he saw my birthday button and he said it was going to be a long time if I had to stand in line, it was so sweet of him! I thanked him, kissed him on the cheek, filled my container, and proceeded back to the police cruiser I rode in (high out of my mind). Upon returning to Robanga and my car, we thanked the officer again, asked if we could take pics with him (he declined) and we were now back on our way to the airport and laughing about how bad the gas fiasco actually could have been.
We arrived at the airport where we have to make a mad dash due to the fact that we are in a major time crunch. Things because serious again when we had to go through airport security because….Robanga definitely had some party favors in her purse. Nods to airport security for not even second guessing anything about us-Robanga, I, and our favors made it to our plane. As we were walking to our seats on the plane, I was starting to have major anxiety and I was in tears walking down the aisle.. The last time I flew, it was more durable because it was the first and at that point, the only flight I was able to consume alcohol on. Naturally, I thought that if I drank on the flight to Atlanta, I would be better able to deal with my fear of flying. Robanga sat at the window and I in the middle. The aisle passenger of our row found his seat and looked at me then said, “Nervous, huh?” I shook my head “yes,” and he sat down and smiled (he was a cutie pie and very stylish). He introduced himself and offered me a Xanax, which I took from him but discretely put it in my bra to save for another time. As the flight started takeoff, I began to start acting out/acting crazy. As soon as alcohol was available inflight, I began to indulge. I was chatting up the guy next to me and Robanga was growing increasingly irritated with my plane antics. Two very horrifying things occurred that made me go insane:
- We waited for roughly 20 minutes on the tarmac because someone’s food tray came down and would not go back up, causing the FAA to restrict us from flying until the try could be properly secure.
- The pilot made an announcement that there were severe storms arond Atlanta and that the FAA had not cleared us for takeoff but that he was going to proceed anyway (this announcement caused looks of panic and confusion on all the visible passengers of the plane that I could see, which in turn made me ABSOLUTELY CRAZY)
By the time we got to the Atlanta airport, our 2 hour layover turned into 30 minutes. I took that as an opportunity to get some food and more drinks and call my mother. We found a restaurant and we ordered food and I ordered 3 shots of Belve and a beer as a chaser, finishing my drinks in 10 minutes FLAT. The next flight was yet another experience….this time, Robanga and I had the same seating and another stranger was sitting next to me on my left. This guy (I forgot his name) was fresh from Afghanistan; he was a National Guard flying to Texas to see his newborn son for the first time and his wife that he missed dearly. Before the plane was fully boarded, we decided that we were going to get SMASHED. As soon as drinks were available, we started the process. By this time, I was showing out, Robanga was trying to force herself to sleep, and dude next to me was chatting it up. We order 9 airplane bottles of liquor a piece and the flight was about 3 hours-a flight attendant cut us off. However, my drinking partner decided to get up, go to the plane’s rear, find a different flight attendant, and paid her to keep serving us. At the end of the flight, Robanga was PISSED, I was TRASHED, and instead of standing/lining up to exit the plane, the guy next to me and myself were taking drunken plane selfies in front of everyone, laughing hysterically, talking loudly, and making everyone on the plane feel uncomfortable. I look so literally and figuratively fucked up in the pictures, I couldn’t even show them to anyone!
Our flight was late concerning the arrival time and the shuttle to the hotel had already stopped running for the night. We did not realize this right away and in my drunken stupor, I bumped heads with a limo driver. Somehow we began arguing and he called Robanga stupid so I proceeded to cuss him out. This led to him giving us a ride to our hotel in his white, beat up, hoopty of a limo that looked like it was bought circa the late 80s. When we got to our room, we pretty much passed out.
The next day, we kept waking up and discussing what we were going to do; but then, we kept falling back asleep. Meanwhile, the guy that I was there to see told me that he would get with me at 2:00, then he changed the time to 6:00 and it was not until around 8:00 that this next thing happened: The guy, he will stay nameless, actually sent his ace and friends over to us and the last time we spoke, around 6:00 P.M., was the last time I talked to him for months! His ace came over with party favors and two homeboys. We all started to liven up when the ace left and Robanga and myself were left wondering what in the hell we were about to do. Luckily, of the two strangers that were left, the driver said he would take us out. We continue to party a bit at the hotel, and then we all leave to go to his car. He had a rad ass silver BMW with blood red leather interior. When we got in the car, he turned it on and one of my most fave 2PAC songs came blasting through the speakers. It was at that instance that I knew I was about to have a great night. As we pulled up to the club, I received a pocket call from Mr. Principles. I listened to the background and I heard two girls laughing, it sounded like they were having a blast. I told everyone what happened, we all laughed about it, and we went inside.
SN: When I got back to Virginia, I found out that the two girls the accompanied Mr. Principles during the pocket dial was none other than his DC girlfriend (I later had a problem with her when I became VA girlfriend) and Siren, hanging out with him in a hotel behind my back, on my birthday weekend.
The club that we went to was super dope. We had an awesome time, groups of people we FLOCKING over to us, it was CRAZY!!! I have pictures with a group of girls doing a bachelorette party that I don’t remember. I have pictures with a group of like 10 dudes that I don’t remember. I had a slew of pictures with some hood looking dude that I was all over with golds in his mouth from Tennessee somewhere; him, I remember. There were selfies with randoms, Robanga left her iPhone in one club and SOMEONE ACTUALLY FOUND US AND BROUGHT IT BACK TO HER IN ANOTHER CLUB, party favors galore, sweaty dancing, sloppy kisses, LOTS of screaming, and straight PARTYING. We had to be at the airport by 5:00A.M. to make our Sunday flight back to VA. After we left the club, we went back to the room to do last minute packing and pass around more party favors. One of the dudes we were with whipped out his stuff and offered me some birthday pipe. Although it was quite appealing, he was a fine fellow, I couldn’t bring myself to say yes on the strength that; though I was stood up in a major way buy my flame, the stranger was his friend and I just wasn’t going for the “she fucks the crew” kind of look. We finished our last minute things at the hotel, changed our clothes and headed to the airport. I took that Xanax and I actually slept on both flights back to Virginia. By the time we got to Richmond, we were ABSOLUTELY spent. The drive to Norfolk was AWFUL. We made it. It was a weekend to remember for sure.
I share this story a week shy of a year to date. A lot has since then transpired between the guy I went to see and myself. We are still in contact, not on a regular basis; but nevertheless, he is like a 9 on the 10scale. His ranking matters because it’s high enough to make me disregard certain standards that I make lower ranks uphold. That being said, I’m not opposed to letting him get it again’ actually, he can DEFINITELY get it again, smh. Also, stay tuned as my and his story does continue…..