Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent. I’ve cleaned up the story to make it PG-13, you can call me for the R version.
As it goes, dear friends, I was in need of a Palm Springs getaway. I don’t need to tell you that I adore that little town. It’s the perfect distance away that can make you feel like you’re actually in another world—or at least another state. Aside from hot time, which is what I coined in place of summer one day when I couldn’t remember the word summer, it is also forced relaxation. Nothing happens in that town, and I love that.
I decided to invite my friend Chauncey, as he has never been. This ignites the artist in me because I get to not only be the master planner that I am, but also server as an ambassador—to fun. I thought Chauncey was the perfect guest as he is very much like me in that we require little maintenance (with the exception of some champagne), have very similar senses of humor (scary), and we both know the theme song to Moonlighting.
I wasn’t going to half-ass this, or anything I do really, so I booked us Thursday through Sunday because it always seems to short in my opinion. We would be staying at a lovely little boys only boutique resort—primarily so that I could sport my new hot shorts. They needed to be sported, they’re adorable.
We departed around midday on Thursday and set off for what I knew would be a wonderful time. I didn’t know just how wonderful, but we’ll get to that shortly. There was the natural trepidation about going on a trip with someone for the first time. What if we argued? What if I was just a ball of fury and scared the living daylights out of him? What if one of us stepped on a rusty nail and contracted tuberculosis? Or worse, scurvy. All within the realm of possibility. Those concerns were quickly dissolved.
We arrive to 110° heat, which was delicious. Our first stop, naturally, was my favorite liquor store just before entering the downtown area. We stocked up on what libations we thought we might fancy for the weekend. As I informed Chauncey, this is always step one.
I played tour guide as we drove through downtown, pointing out points of interest. There aren’t many. At first glance, this place can seem pretty unimpressive. Two streets that span a matter of blocks—there’s your nightlife, enjoy!
We get to the hotel and walk into the lobby—which is a generous overstatement as it’s more of a medium sized room with a broken piano and front desk.
“You must be Adriel,” said the man behind the desk. It’s so nice to be greeted by name, but in that tone I felt I’d already done something wrong.
As it happens, the room I was originally booked in was under some construction so the GM offered to upgrade us to an apartment with more living space and a full kitchen. Score.
We get in our room and set our things down. Pop the champagne and I give Chauncey his welcome packet. Let me clarify what that is before you jump to conclusions. I put together a whole packet of information about Palm Springs. Dining, nightlife, history, do’s and don’ts, a welcome letter, etc. Naturally, I even created a logo. I know, I’m a nerd that way. He seemed to like it, so that’s all that matters.
We lounged around for a bit, got settled, enjoyed some drinks and music before getting ready for dinner. I had reservations for Wang’s in the Desert. I don’t know if there’s a pun in that title, but I’d rather not think too much about Mr. Wang or his wang.
Lovely dinner was had. I introduced Chauncey to a dirty martini—not his bag. He enjoyed his Washington apple, which was interesting to say the least. We wrapped things up there and went back to the hotel for some swimming.
I change into one of the multitude of hot shorts I had with me, but at least I let the other person pick which ones. I’m nice that way, they’re the ones who have to look at this mess, might as well be in something easy on the eyes.
We do some laps, have some great conversation, and primarily make a ton of jokes. Most of which I can’t repeat because they’d seem really crude or vulgar. Who knew Chauncey had it in him?! Finally someone with whom I can make racist, anti-religious jokes with while wearing a smile. Sometimes, I like to make people cringe and apparently so does he.
Now for the sappy part. I’ve never seen a shooting star. I know! But you have to understand that I’m born and raised in Los Angeles. I’ve seen shootings and I’ve seen stars, but that’s completely different. I’ve even seen stars, shooting. (Hang in there, TI.) Be that as it may, I thought this was so cool. I hadn’t remembered or correlated that we were there at the beginning of the Perseid Meteor Shower. Just my luck, because this consumed me for a good while as I tried to see as many as I could. I made a game of it where in I received a little prize for each one I saw. I may have cheated just a little. It was a good prize!
Being that the pool is open twenty-four hours, we were there for a long time. We eventually went inside to play my favorite game of my own creation, Guess the TV Theme Song. Chauncey was a more formidable opponent than I suspected, which came back to bite me considering the wagers I made.
…
The next morning we got up and decided to go into town. We joked about that line because it was very Little House on the Prairie. “We’re going into town. Hitch up the wagons! We’ll be gone for a fortnight.”
Whilst walking around we were stopped by a gentleman with a video camera, microphone, and a shirt that said Local 2.
“Can I ask you guys a couple of questions?”
I jumped into position. You know, my angled, camera ready pose.
“Oh, people usually want to know what the questions are first.” The guy commented.
“Bullshit, let’s roll.” I responded. I’m gonna be on TV!
It happened to slip our minds that it was now Friday the 13th, so the guy wanted to ask about superstitions. I had made some jokes about it, mainly because being Cuban these American superstitions are child’s play.
Chauncey, on the other hand, had a slew of things. The only thing is that he has an nearly uncontrollable quirk where when confronted with a stranger, his voice drops an octave and varies throughout the conversation, sometimes within the same sentence. He shared one thing where apparently you have to turn around three times if crossed by a black cat. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
The camera guy asked if he could videotape him turning around three times. Mind you, it’s Friday morning and we’re on the sidewalk, which is virtually empty at this point.
Chauncey gets into position, I’m out of shot. He begins his pseudo Wonder Woman spin, but inexplicably decided to count out each spin by saying, “that’s one.”
Seemingly benign, right? Wrong. Because of the voice modulation, when he counted out his spins, it sounded more like, “das one!” Now, in your head think of a special needs child as he learns to count. In my head I heard, “Das one, mama!” Followed by some clapping and repetition.
I bit my tongue until the display was over. But the minute we walked away, boy did I let him have it. “What was that?! Das one?!” He hadn’t realized it at the time, so I was nice enough to point it out, numerous times at that. We had a good laugh.
We stopped into a bar to cool off from the midday heat. This is where my embarrassing moment comes into play. The night before, while swimming, Chauncey mentioned that he’d never seen me with my hair undone, or down. This morning I said I wouldn’t do it (secretly I was lazy). I was wearing a v-neck t-shirt in a nice dusty rose color; I guess one would call it. We snapped some pictures and upon review I was horrified to realize something. With my hair in this condition and my choice of top, I looked like Jodie Foster, circa Freaky Friday. Fantastic, I look like a thirteen-year-old lesbian (allegedly).
Oh, we really had a good laugh at this. Mainly Chauncey did, so I reminded him that we should leave soon and get him back to his special school.
Back at the hotel we heated up some leftover Wang and had nice little lunch watching TV. This was at the height of the Dr. Laura racist rant, so I was in hog heaven—bring that bitch down a peg. We were flipping through the channels and there are two channels in particular for adults only, if you catch my drift. Let me be clear, you don’t want to see a wang while eating Wang’s. Those two things should always be mutually exclusive.
Cocktail time! Because there’s really nothing to do in Palm Springs, all you really can do is drink and go to the pool—and we did just that, happily.
Now, there is one truth to Palm Springs, especially at this resort. We were the youngest cutest guys there. That’s a default. The other patrons were much older, so it was an instant ego boost. Time for the hotter of the hot shorts, thank you.
Suffice it to say, the other guests weren’t huge fans of ours. I could hear their thoughts, “Look at those two. We used to be young and happy.” In my mind there was a subsequent private argument between them back in their rooms about how the light had gone from their eyes and they were sidelined to just going through the motions. Maybe that’s overblown, but it’s my fantasy so suck it.
Now we come to the part of the story that I like to call, To Catch a Predator, because we almost caught the predator! There was an African-American gentleman there who looked fairly young, early to mid-thirties, but because black don’t crack, we assumed much older. With him was a kid, just a day over eighteen, I’m sure. They were there together…
Queue Chauncey with the winning line!
“Want some iced tea?” He asked me, loudly, with his eyes wide as to say, ‘are you seeing what I’m seeing?!’
The iced tea is in reference to the Dateline show To Catch a Predator, where the decoy always asks the predator if they’d like some iced tea. It seems they go ape shit over iced tea. We had a field day with this, adding to it, “Want some cookies?” They couldn’t walk by without getting a giggle out of us.
Naturally, I took a picture of the predator and the decoy. Little did I know at the time that I wasn’t as smooth as I thought and the decoy saw me. He’ll thank me later when he goes missing.
More cocktails, more swimming.
Mind you, the GM, Dan, loves us. We asked him where would be a good place to go later. He gave some recommendations. Chauncey, the scamp that he is, asked about one place in particular, the Tool Shed. I’ve never been there but the name alone conjured up images of a garage with a lot of oil on the floor, or at least I hope that’s oil.
We napped then got ready to head out. We went to one bar where they were playing funny videos and musicals on the tv’s. It was actually a lot of fun. There was a dog in the bar, which I didn’t understand, but that was ok—he’d had a rough day.
Then I accidentally spilled my drink on Chauncey. Woops. So we had to go back so he could change. From there it was time to check out the Tonka Truck, or the Lead Pipe, or whatever the hell that place was called.
Chauncey was in heaven, who knew? The place wasn’t as scary as I thought and we had ourselves a time there. We made a series of phone calls to my best friend because we thought we were funny, but not so much. To sum up the Torque Wrench, there were men in leather harnesses, a dude with his ass out, and a few of those leather hats like that guy from the Village People wore. So you know, just a typical Friday night.
…
Saturday we woke up and went to the supermarket. Seeing that we both like to cook, we thought we’d make dinner. I know, melts your heart right?
We get back and have some champagne and more hot shorts. We were informed by Dan that the Decoy was kicked out of a bar the night prior for two missteps: 1) Asking, in what I’m sure was the gayest voice, ‘Do you guys play Lady Gaga?’ and 2) Asking if there was an 18 and over club nearby. Listen Decoy, the median age in this town is rigamortis, so no, there is no 18 and over club. Upon hearing this the bartender booted him. We laughed, this was rich!
We further enraged the other guests by being adorable, get used to it. Then it was time to start cooking. We decided upon spaghetti with Italian sausage and a nice salad. I’m just going to say it, there’s nothing I love more than someone who knows their way around the kitchen. We left our shades and front door open so that people would be jealous. We even made a plate for Dan, who was so happy to get a home cooked dinner.
Afterward, we got ready and hit the town again. We hit up Hunter’s then back to the Rusty Anchor. Again, it was a really fun time, naturally—I don’t disappoint.
…
Sunday was now upon us and it was time to pack up. Well, not quite. Considering we didn’t get to bed until roughly 6:00 a.m., we slept in. Dan had to call and make sure we were alive. We departed and said goodbye to a memory filled weekend. We never did find out if we made it on Local 2. (Das two!)