Last Sunday, I flew from dreary Portland all the way to sunny Orlando, Florida in order to meet my brother’s family, as it was my nephew’s first time going to DisneyWorld and I very much wanted to be there to see it. After all, how many times in your life do you get to witness a 7-year-old’s first time seeing fireworks over a castle? Not many, mis amigos, and it was pretty goddamn awesome.
On my second day there, I went to Downtown Disney with them. After we did our fun-filled, Disney day thang, I opted to stay for a while. The hotel was only a few minutes away by foot, not to mention there was a bus that could take me back that ran every 30 minutes or so. I wound up picking a tequila bar against my better judgment. Alas, it was one of the only open ones that had seats at the bar available. The bartenders were good looking, I was exhausted and all I really wanted was to have a couple of those ridiculously sugary drinks you can only get while on vacation.
There I am, sipping on a pomegranate margarita via a curly straw, and this guy to my left turns towards me and says, “So, you on vacation?” I nodded, and we talked for a few minutes. He was a teacher from a place close to where I grew up, and I talked about what I did for a living. He asked questions about my tattoos, as strangers in bars occasionally do. It wasn’t sleazy, nor did it come off as aggressive. Plus, when he asked my age and I told him I was 23, he responded as though that actually deterred him, as he admitted to being 34. It just seemed like he was genuinely interested in chatting with me as one semi-lonely person to another.
Only, he was not alone.

He was with his girlfriend of just a few months who, upon witnessing her boyfriend speaking to me, staggered up to us. She was incredibly drunk. I mean really, strikingly wasted. The kind of drunk you only get when you’re a freshman at your first college party or after something terrible happens. Rather than saying anything, she just stood there, wobbling back and forth, then grabbed his arm to hang onto it while glaring at me.
“Hi.”















