The night of my birthday, the whole family went out to dinner. That used to be a pretty big number, but now that my cousins are married, it’s even bigger, so when we go out to dinner there are like twenty of us. It sounds like a hassle in my head and then I go and realize how awesome it is that everyone still gets together to celebrate one another’s birthdays. It’s that grown-up thing again, I guess. After dinner, I met a few friends out for drinks. It was all very nice but low-key, and when I woke up the next day to leave for Iowa, I realized I had managed to seamlessly turn thirty-nine.
Once I settled into my room at the PZAZZ! hotel and casino, I decided I would wander out into the casino, have a drink, and maybe play some blackjack. I could do whatever I wanted to! I was on my own! Hooray!
This casino was a disaster. It definitely wasn’t a Vegas casino—it was an Iowa casino. Although, I’m not sure one is better than the other. There was a permanent cloud of smoke hanging below the ceiling. The games all looked a little worn down, and so did the people. But I grew up in Arkansas. So this was my kind of place.
I had a fantasy of a steak dinner, so I wandered by the restaurant, only to find that it was a café and steak really was just a fantasy. So then I wandered up to the bar, ordered a drink, and sat down at a Wheel of Fortune machine. I was just about to put a twenty-dollar bill in and go off when a guy approached me and asked if I was Sarah from Chelsea Lately.
“I am.” I smiled.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking confused.
“Oh, I’m performing here tomorrow night. You should come!”
“Oh, cool! Maybe I will!”
“Great! It’ll be a good show. Josh Wolf is performing, too.”
“Oh, awesome! Is he here?”
“No, he’ll be here tomorrow,” I said as I turned back to the Wheel of Fortune machine.
“Oh. So you’re alone?” he whispered.
My back straightened. I paused, trying to figure out how to respond to this semi-creepy question.
“Nope, my friend is in the room right now,” I lied.
“Oh,” he sighed. I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed because he wanted to hang out, have sex, or kill me.
“I better go check on him,” I said as I jumped up and made a beeline for my room.
Look, I have no idea what this guy’s motives were. It could have just been a simple, harmless observation on his part that I was alone. But I wasn’t sticking around to find out.
So I spent the rest of my evening in the hotel room. Since the steak option wasn’t one, I ordered a Reuben sandwich and a bottle of wine from room service, lay in bed, and watched bad TV all night. Honestly, it was wonderful.
Josh arrived late the next day. The casino manager, who looked exactly like Tom Arnold, took great care of us. He set up a whole spread in the green room—way more food than the two of us could ever get through, or so we thought. And the show went great. It was completely packed and the crowd was really fun. Afterward, while we were doing the usual meet-and-greet with the audience, Josh asked me if I wanted some edible pot. Now, to be clear, I’m not very good high, so I don’t get high very often at all. It makes me unable to hold a conversation and I just end up staring at people and giggling to myself. When my best friend got married years ago, someone gave me a medical marijuana pill that I think was meant for a horse. I was so stoned that all I did was sit in a corner and make a sound that I can only compare to what it sounds like when you try to stifle a sneeze. And the last time I’d gotten high prior to Josh’s offer was probably about a year earlier. I was at a party at a friend’s house and there was a guy there whom I had a pretty big crush on. Everyone else was high so I decided, Why not? Cut to me talking to the guy I had a crush on for a good half hour, then getting really quiet for about five straight minutes, then breaking the silence by asking him, “So what are you doing this summer?” This took place in January.
“Why not?” I responded to Josh, totally ignoring the part of my brain that knew better.
As the edible chocolate concoction set in, Josh and I headed out to roam the casino.
“I think I’m really high,” I said to Josh as we rounded a corner to scope out the gambling situation.
“All right, then you probably don’t need the other half of that chocolate,” he told me.
“Wait . . . other half ?”
“You mean you ate the whole thing?”
“Was I not supposed to?”
“Too late now,” Josh laughed. “This is going to be hilarious.”
A couple of girls who had been at the show spotted us and started walking our way.
“Oh, no,” I said, panicked.
“What?” Josh asked.
“People.”
As the two girls got closer, I looked around for a place to escape, but there was nowhere to go.
“Hey, guys! We loved the show!” one of the girls said excitedly.
“Thank you!” Josh replied.
I just stared at them.
“So what are you guys doing now? Can we buy you shots?”
Josh looked at me, then back at the girls. “No, thank you. We both have early flights tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on! It’s New Year’s Eve!” the other girl said encouragingly.
“Eeeeeve,” I giggled.
“What?” the girls asked in unison.
“Candy,” I replied.
Both girls looked completely confused and I thought that was hysterical. Josh thanked them again for coming to the show, then grabbed my elbow and led me away before I could make a complete asshole out of myself.
I was still laughing about the word “Eve” when I looked up and saw a sign that said CANDY ALLEY. For a second I thought I was hallucinating, but when I pointed to the sign, Josh got really excited, so I knew that the sign was there and that it really was pointing us to a place called Candy Alley.
That night, Candy Alley was the best place I’d ever set foot in. It had every kind of candy imaginable. There was a girl behind the counter and you just told her what you wanted and she scooped it into a bag. I did a lot of pointing and she did a lot of scooping, but she remained very pleasant—she probably thought it was nice that the dark-haired gentleman I was with took his mentally challenged sister out for some candy on New Year’s.
Once Josh and I were both armed with giant bags of candy, we headed back to my room and turned on the television. We laughed about the girls and what an idiot they must have thought I was. Stuffing my face with candy and laughing with my good friend turned out to be the perfect way to spend New Year’s. We didn’t even make it until midnight together, though, both of us wanting to lie in bed and watch TV alone for the remainder of the evening. So around eleven o’clock, Josh went back to his room. I immediately crawled into bed, ready to flip back and forth between New Year’s countdown shows and re-runs of Bar Rescue. But something was missing. So I got up and slowly cracked open my door, looked both ways to make sure I wouldn’t have to encounter another person (including Josh), then ran to the green room to see if any of that food the manager had ordered for us was still there. Unfortunately, it was. So I grabbed a plate and piled on enough cheese to kill someone, then darted back to my room. When I got in my room, I realized I was not wearing pants, so it really was a good thing I hadn’t run into anyone else.
The next morning, I checked out of the hotel feeling pretty good, because I was no longer high and I was wearing pants. The nice lady at the front desk told me that the car service would pick me up at nine o’clock. I looked around and didn’t see a town car outside, so I asked the lady at the front desk if she knew where the ride for Sarah Colonna was.
“Right here!” I heard a voice call out from behind me.
I turned to see an elderly couple standing by the entrance to the hotel.
“You ready to go?” the man asked.
“Um, okay,” I said, totally confused as he pointed to his Toyota Corolla, which was just on the other side of the glass doors.
Look, I’m not a diva or anything, so don’t judge me—but what the fuck? Even most comedy clubs send a town car for you to and from the airport, and every casino I’ve ever performed in definitely has. This just seemed like I was getting a ride to the airport from someone’s grandparents.
What kind of operation are they running here? I wondered as I lifted my own bags into the trunk because I was worried that my giant suitcase might be too much for the eighty-year-old man who was about to drive me to the airport.
I noticed that the man was very tall, so I started to get in the backseat behind his wife.
“Oh, no, sorry—there’s a car seat there. My grandson’s.” She smiled.
“Oh, okay. I’ll get in on the other side.”
The old man was taller than I thought; his seat was so far back that my knees were basically resting on my boobs. Luckily, the airport was only an hour and a half away. FML.
It was snowing and the woman kept telling her husband to keep his eyes on the road. It seemed like he was looking straight ahead, so unless his eyes were closed, he seemed to have them on the road. But this felt as if it was their usual banter so I just tried to tune it out.
“So you’re a magician?” the old man asked me.
“Huh?”
“We heard you’re a magician. You put on a magic show last night, right?” he asked.
“Um, no. I’m not a ma— Yeah, I’m a magician,” I said, surrendering. The last thing I wanted to hear right then was, “A comedian?! Well, then tell us something funny!”
“Oh, can you show us a magic trick?” the wife asked.
Crap, I didn’t think of that.
“Um, I can’t do magic tricks in a car,” I told them in a very serious tone.
“Oh. Well, can you do a small trick?” she asked.
I looked at her and really wished I knew at least one small magic trick—to make her happy and to get her off my ass—but I don’t know any magic tricks. Nothing.
“My powers don’t work in moving vehicles,” I explained.
“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” the man said.
It does?
“Well, did you have a nice evening last night? After your magic show?” the woman asked me, still trying to make small talk.
“It was nice,” I said, opting not to tell them that I ended my night eating cheese pantsless in bed. The memory of the cheese made my stomach hurt and I winced.
“You feel okay?” she asked, noticing my grimace.
“Oh, Martha, she probably had a couple of daiquiris last night, it was New Year’s Eve. Let her be.”
“Yeah, I had one too many daiquiris,” I agreed, wondering if people still drank daiquiris anywhere except at TGI Fridays.
Everyone got quiet and I pretended to fall asleep to avoid any more questions. While I “slept,” they had a ninety-minute conversation about Steak ’n Shake.
When I got to the airport, I texted Josh to let him know that he would not be getting picked up by a car service but instead by two people who reminded me of the old couple from Mulholland Drive.
“Good luck with that,” I wrote.
“Oh, Jesus,” he responded. “Did you go back out to the casino after I left your room? I could have sworn I heard your door open and shut.”
“Nope, must’ve been the person on the other side of you,” I told him. He didn’t need to know about the cheese incident. I wanted to try to leave Iowa with a little bit of dignity.
A few plane-deicing (is that really safe?) delays later, I was alone, back in the comfort of my home in Los Angeles. It was the first day of the New Year and so far nothing had changed, but I was determined that it was going to.
Table for Dos
Although I was disappointed and/or creeped out by the first couple of men I encountered via Tilley Dating Services, I remained open and optimistic. I figured I didn’t have much to lose, especially since Tilley was doing all of the legwork.
Meanwhile, I was off to Evan’s wedding in Dallas. I decided not to drag my wedding date, Lacy, to the rehearsal dinner. I felt like taking her to both things would definitely secure my lesbian status among the rest of the wedding guests and I didn’t want to kill all possibility of having a weekend wedding fling. I wasn’t planning on having a weekend wedding fling, but I wasn’t not planning on it either. I wanted to keep my options open.
The rehearsal dinner was held at a trendy Dallas restaurant that Evan had rented out for the evening. On the taxi ride over, I pictured my entrance: me walking in alone, into a crowd of family and friends, all of whom knew each other, laughing and carrying on, catching up. Married couples sharing stories with the bride and groom, telling them what to expect in the months to come. Unmarried couples basking in the glow of the soon-to-be-wed couple, soaking up the romantic tale of how they came to be engaged, with excitement and nervousness, wondering if they are next. Then me, alone and out of my element, carrying an extra five pounds in water weight because God decided to give me my period for the wedding in hopes to deter me from having sexual activity with a stranger, elbowing my way to the bar.
A man in a suit stopped me at the entrance.
Oh, here we go, I thought as I pulled my pashmina off just enough to give the nice man a glimpse of my cleavage.
I guess even with five extra pounds I look pretty good in this dress.
“Sorry, ma’am, the restaurant is closed for a private event,” he said, stepping in front of the door as if I was a terrorist.
“Yeah, for a rehearsal dinner, right? I’m here for that,” I explained as I pulled my pashmina back over my breasts.
“Oh, sorry. Is it just you or are you waiting for someone to park the car?”
“Just me,” I replied as I pulled the pashmina tighter.
“Just you?”
“Just me,” I repeated as I blew past him and into the restaurant, “table for uno.”
Much to my relief, Evan and Gina were standing right by the entrance. So, I chatted with them for a couple of minutes, then went off to the bar to order some sort of concoction that Evan insisted was a house specialty. I don’t know what was in it, but it looked and tasted like a piña colada, which seemed like an odd “specialty” for a trendy Dallas restaurant, but it had alcohol in it so I didn’t really give a shit. A few minutes later, we were told to take our seats so that the first course could be served. Having already sucked down a couple of specialty drinks, I ordered myself a vodka martini and then looked around, unsure where to sit.
“You’re at our table,” Evan whispered to me as he motioned for me to follow him.
There were five seats at the table, for the bride-and-groom-to-be, another couple, and me. The couple immediately asked me where I was from and what I did for a living, and when I told them, they seemed very interested. They were armed with many questions about my career, about what it’s like to do stand-up, and about what made me decide I wanted to be a comedian. Sometimes, that gets on my nerves. Maybe I don’t like to talk about myself or maybe I just don’t find it as interesting to talk about because to me, it’s just my job—or maybe I’m just an asshole, I’m not sure. But that night, I was extremely happy to answer any and all questions they had about my job. I braced myself for questions about my personal life to follow, but they never came. They were either smart enough to know not to ask a woman alone at a rehearsal dinner such a thing, or they didn’t give a shit. Either way, I was grateful to talk to people who didn’t see me as a single woman in town alone for a wedding—they saw me as a woman with a career sitting next to them at a table. If I could have kissed them both on the lips without making everyone feel awkward, I would have.
The wedding itself was beautiful. I cried a little, just like I always do at weddings
. There isn’t one wedding that I’ve been to that I didn’t cry during. After Sarah Tilley got married, she sent me a photo that was taken of me blubbering during the ceremony.
“You’re such a softie,” she said when she texted the picture to me.
“I always cry at weddings!” I said defensively. “But in this case I think I was just crying because I was so hungover.” (This was a lie; I don’t really get hangovers.)
Evan and Gina’s reception was a blast, too, and Lacy was the perfect date. We sat at a table full of fun people and we always needed our drinks refilled at the same time. And the best part of all: nobody tried to make me go catch the fucking bouquet. All in all, for something I was slightly dreading, it turned out to be a solid weekend. On the flight home, I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that I was still okay on my own. What had I gotten myself so worked up about in the first place?
A couple days after I got back to L.A., I noticed a tweet someone sent to me. It stood out as the sender said that he had met a friend/coworker of mine, Ross Mathews, at “the game on Sunday” and hoped Ross put in a good word for him with me. I clicked on the profile to see that it was a guy named Jon who plays for the Seattle Seahawks. Ross is a huge fan of the Seahawks, so his being at the game made sense to me. Although I am a fan of sports, football is the sport I follow the least, as it generally confuses the shit out of me. I did know the Seahawks were on their way to the Super Bowl, but that was about it. However, I was curious about this guy who wanted to meet me, so I Googled him.
Oh, wow. He’s so cute, I thought as I navigated to his Wikipedia page. And he’s not married.
Oh, wow. He’s really good at his job, I thought as I scanned the page about his career. I didn’t know what all of it meant, but I did know that it was impressive.
Oh, wow. He’s only thirty-two, I thought as I read that he was born in 1981. I wonder if he knows how old I am? Surely he knew how old I was. Guys Google, too, right? Right? It’s not as if it was a huge age difference, but I’m used to dating guys my age or older.
Has Anyone Seen My Pants? Page 18