Rory and Marissa get Maui’d

Ok, I’m not actually getting Maui’d.  I’m not even going to get “lei’d” on this trip.  Nor have I given up on men and started batting for the pink taco team…although if I go on one more awful online date  with a man who has an undisclosed disability or disformity, I just might take the plunge.  For now I’m still your favorite single, hetero-asexual, bitchy travel blogger.  This time I will be taking a romantic Valentines Day weekend getaway with one of my best friends.  Translation: one of my most dangerous partners in crime.  Be afraid, blog readers, be very afraid, because Rory and Marissa are going to Hawaii.  And where Rory and Marissa go, weird shit is bound to follow. We’ll be away a grand total of four days.  Why are we only going for four days?  Because (1) Marissa doesn’t travel much, and (2) I will take what I can get.  Keep in mind I am still working through my post-Thailand Yacht Week depression.  So this is basically my Yacht Week rebound trip – it’s quick and does the trick.  She could have invited me to Tijuana for a donkey convention and I probably would have said yes.  Anything to get over the post Yacht Week blues and get me out of the excel spreadsheet hell that is the cornerstone of my everyday life.  Now I know what your next questions is – why are we going to Maui, the land of gag-inducing couples and mid-western families vacationing in perfect boring harmony?  Well this is how I look at it: I’m not getting a dozen roses this valentines day.  But I will be getting a bomb ass tan.  Only the latter makes me look skinnier anyway.  Plus, all you boring couples reading this will need something to entertain you while you stare deeply into your partner’s eyes and try to convince yourselves that that a bouquet of flowers and some chocolate trumps getting drunk in Hawaii with me.  And yes, this installment will be full of bitchy single girl rants such as that one. At least I’m consistent.  If you don’t like it, go read a blog about a housewife making a meat loaf in the shape of a heart.

Now, I know you are all dying to know more about the latest blog character, so without further ado, let’s meet Marissa:

Name: Marissa

Codename: Mar, Rissa, the R of “DFR” (bonus points if someone can tell us what “DFR” stands for in the comments)

Likes: Cheese, brown liquor, capes, baths, spilling her drinks on people, cats, name dropping, internet stalking, judging people by what college they went to and which sport they played (especially men), drunk texing/messaging/facebooking, booking back-to-back dates in the same night, asking people what high school they went to and then naming someone from said high school (seriously…any high school).

Dislikes: Wearing pants, eating carbs (unfortunate, as this is on my personal “likes” list), short men,  minor insignificant qualities in every man she meets as a form of a defense mechanism, wasting perfectly good calories on eating when you could be drinking, cheap jewelry, cheap things in general (just try to get her in a Forever 21…I dare you).

How we met: In 2003 on our first sorority beer bus when I pissed in a cup on the bus (a weak bladder, even in my early years), and then we drunkenly called her dad to ask him if Marissa should get her tongue or eyebrow pierced, after which I passed out with my horrible permed hair on her shoulder.  [See below for an old school pic of that elusive perm].  I should also note that she pierced neither.  However, this did set a dangerous precedent for ingenious decision making skills while drinking.

Favorite Travel Memory: Scaling a four story building in Costa Rica in an effort to break into an afterparty while simultaneously testing her “reflexivos como un gato”.  Turns out she is very un-gato like and wound up with metal in her leg, which I then treated with Costa Rican vodka in our hotel bathroom before getting drunk again the next day.  I would also like to note that Allie got glass in her foot and I lost my purse in that same night.  Pura Vida, baby!

In an effort to make you all fully aware of what you are in for, and partially to indulge my obsession with lists, I have put together a little catalog of a few of the most ridiculous situations Mar and I have gotten ourselves into during our 11 years of friendship.  So let’s take a walk down “Sorority girls gone mild” memory lane…

1.  The time we (along with our friend Allie) were asked to do a photo shoot for our hotel in Cabo in exchange for a free lunch, but we haggled them up to a free steak dinner, then showed up at said dinner shit faced from a booze cruise and proceeded to order half the menu and dance around the restaurant with the waiters.  Sidenote: Allie was robbed and Marissa fell off the boat on this booze cruise, but did that deter us from the free dinner?  Hell no.  If anything, it only strengthened our drunk food resolve.
2. That time we met an old ex-Los Angeles Laker at a bar in Venice and, after many drinks were bought for us, hopped in his limo to a strip club somewhere in LA.  After a fun night neither of us can recall the details of, Marissa puked in the limo on the ride back and we were promptly kicked out and left on the streets of LA.  This was before Uber, people.  The struggle was real.  For the record, I could make an entire list that just involves Marissa puking and me cleaning it up.  Now THAT is friendship.
3. The four years we spent driving around in her Honda Civic yelling “Hey, boyfriend!” at every male pedestrian we passed while rocking out to one of her 30,000 CDs.  Remember CD’s?  There was also period of time where we yelled “Your boyfriend is cheating on you!” at every couple we passed.  Have you ever seen the look on a girl’s face the instant she considers that she might be being cheated on?  That is basically the bitter, single girl’s porn equivalent.  Don’t judge it till you’ve tried it, people.  We’ve rented a convertible for this trip, so the phrase “Aloha, boyfriend!” will be utilized to its fullest.
4. When we were young and hot and owned Vegas for a night.  Okay, we didn’t own all of Vegas, but we literally owned the Palms for a night.  Rissa made friends with a promoter named Brice who took us to every bar and club in the hotel, comped drinks everywhere, until we finally made it to Moon night club.  One of the girls asked why the club was called moon, at which point he handed us the remote to open the fucking ceiling of the club.  Don’t worry – the night takes a turn.  We somehow end up getting escorted up to an “Eyes wide shut” party in a pool suite where we pretended not to see the threesomes and instead frolicked in the pool like the drunk little girls we were.  I’m pretty sure we got out just before the orgy began.
5. Marissa “interned” at a club in Hollywood (which shall remain nameless) during college, and used to swipe ID’s that were left behind at the bar so we could use them as fakes.  And this is how I came to be “Jamin Gloria Sartaur” for about two years.  Pronounced “Ha-mine” but we liked to refer my legal alter ego as “Jamin” as in “jamin’ to your favorite song”.  One night we decided to test my likeness to old Jamin and dressed me up to look exactly like the picture (full Chola – fake eyebrows, silver chain and all) and then went to Von’s to buy vodka.  Apparently I am a very convincing Chola.

I think you get the gist.  We are weird.  Hopefully, I have persuaded you to follow us on our Jewaiian Vacation (term cred: Brett Boston).  I can personally guarantee at least one situation where we consume far more alcohol than is required or normal and make handfuls of random people uncomfortable (did someone say luaus are all you can drink?).  We will take their judgement with zero grace or humility.  And I will probably get in a fight at some point…especially if someone asks me to stop cursing because their children are within earshot.  As if (1) I give a shit, and (2) that is somehow my problem.