What We Do at 5 a.m.

It’s always good to know people who have been beaten up.

What we do at 11 p.m. : It’s Thursday night and my roommate Minhlan and I don’t have to wait in a line that’s wrapped around the block to get into a club where a live band is playing. Our friend of a friend was accidentally beat up by the bouncers of the club a while ago and had his nose broken. They worked out a deal where he and anyone with him can skip to the front of the line and get in for free, for life.

What we do at 12 a.m. : Share a Sprite and pretend to enjoy the band.

What we do at 1 a.m. : Attempt to make sense of the gibberish that’s coming out of the mouths of drunk guys who try to get us to dance with their friends. We dance with beaten-up boy and his posse instead.

What we do at 2 a.m. : We don’t succumb to the offerings of Osha Thai restaurant that have often satiated our late-night cravings. Osha’s a place where the waiter has a crush on your friend, where they bring out the food seconds after you’ve ordered it, where there’s the occasional dead fruit fly atop the pineapple fried rice and where they spill chili flakes all over the table at the end of the meal. It’s top notch.

Instead of Osha we go grocery shopping at the 24-hour Safeway with the intention of picking up cuties and some vegetables. Minhlan’s feet hurt from all the dancing in her new shoes so I tell her to hop in the cart but she refuses and stands on the end of the cart instead. I try my best not to ram all 95 pounds of her into a display of Cheez-Its.

We skip the vegetables and head straight for the ice cream aisle where 2-for-1 Dreyers is an offer we can’t pass up. We also buy chocolate covered biscuits and then some juice so we can rationalize to ourselves that we are, in fact, getting something healthy.

We’re laughing at anything and everything as I push her from one aisle to the next. Who knew a loaf of bread could be so amusing? I’m sure the shelf stockers think we are high. The only other people shopping are a couple and a woman who earnestly tells the cashier that she came to the store not wanting to spend over $10 and that she had spent exactly $10. She is very proud of herself.

What we do at 3 a.m. : We come home and make really strong espresso with lots of cream and sugar because it’s the best night cap. We attempt to watch two different movies and fail miserably. With eyelids drooping down to our knees we eventually surrender to sleep.

What we do at 4 a.m. : Open our eyes for a moment and immediately close them again.

What we do at 5 a.m. : We tell each other to go to bed already. I sleepwalk to my room, trying not to wake my roommate Lissette up and Minhlan slumbers on the sofa.

At least we still have the weekend.