Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

with my twenty-one-year-old accountant boyfriend who would wine and dine me at T.G.I. Fridays. I had no involvement with any extracurricular activities at school, mostly because the one time I tried out for cheerleading I was summoned to the nurse’s office the next morning to be tested for scoliosis.
    Sometime after our fourth Ketel One and grapefruit, he mentioned that he was going after Shannen Doherty to play the lead in his movie and was finding her extremely difficult to deal with. “Yeah, no kidding,” I told him. “Everyone knows that.”
    By the way he reacted, you would have thought I told him that slavery never happened. He laid into me with the same gusto as a right-wing political pundit on the O’Reilly Factor defending President’s Bush right to vacation six days out of the week.
    His insane passion for a person who not only starred in a television show about witchcraft but also worked at a place called The Peach Pit intrigued me to no end. I love people who have such passion for complete nonsense. When I told him that most people are well aware of the fact that she’s difficult to work with, he launched into a promotional campaign with a fervor I hadn’t seen since Anna Nicole Smith signed with TrimSpa.
    According to Big Red, Shannen had been through a very traumatic childhood, beginning with a role on Little House on the Prairie , then moving on to that other show with Wilford Brimley. The Little House on the Prairie part I totally understood; if I had to go without TCBY or Donkey Kong Jr. when I was a child, things would have probably ended up a lot differently for me. Who knows what kind of long-term effects milking an animal while wearing pigtails can have on a little girl. But Wilford Brimley? How anyone could have anything negative to say about Wilford Brimley was borderline preposterous.
    “All right, now you’ve crossed a line,” I told him.
    After two more cocktails I called Home James, a drunk-driving service that sends someone over to where your car is located, with a scooter that folds up into your trunk. They drive you home, take their scooter out, and then hightail it back to headquarters. It’s not cheap, but it’s definitely a great way of avoiding Jack in the Box. They charge you extra to stop for fast food.
    Just as I got into bed, my cell phone rang and it was Austin. He asked me if I had gotten home okay and then asked me if I thought we’d ever have sex. “Wow, that’s pretty straightforward. I like your style,” I said. “But I doubt it…. I’m kind of seeing someone,” I told him. Saying I was seeing someone wasn’t a complete lie, since I was kind of casually sleeping with a guy named Darryl who lived in my apartment building—but it wasn’t anything I would have mentioned had Austin had a more reasonable hair color.
    “Kind of seeing someone, or seeing someone?” he asked.
    I have to admit I was turned on by his drunken confidence, which I knew was drunken because it hadn’t been there until he went on his Shannen Doherty tirade. “Well, kind of,” I replied.
    “Okay, well, I’ll call you tomorrow and see if you change your mind.”
    “Tootles.” I hung up and wondered why I would say something so stupid when I clearly had the upper hand. It was so like me to be sitting at a poker table, holding a royal flush, only to have another player at the table catch me high-fiving myself.
    I woke up the next morning and stared at my ceiling, wondering why Excedrin couldn’t just walk out of my bathroom cabinet, hop onto my bed, and triple-axle its way into my mouth. Then my thoughts turned to Big Red. There was something about the way he helped the guy from Home James fold up his scooter and pop it into my trunk that was very endearing. Then my thoughts moved north to his hair, and my body shuddered. If only it wasn’t so bright.
    My manager, Dave, called me later that morning to see if Big Red had come to my show.
    “Yes,” I replied.
    “And?” Dave