Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler Page A

"Back to the house to hang out with Mom and Dad?"
    "Don't tell Mom and Dad that we did mushrooms, Sloane."
    That was the last thing I remember saying before I started seeing flying Chinese babies. Sloane claims that Greg and I got up from the table before our food came and started dancing in the middle of the restaurant, together.
    After she and Mike finished their meal, she came over to us and told us they were leaving and that we could take a cab home. Then she said that she told me, "There is no music playing, and you and Greg are related." I do in fact remember dancing, but I have a hard time believing there was no music.
    About four hours later, I found myself in a cab back to my parents' house without Greg. I was still pretty high, but now the Chinese babies were at my eye level and were on foot.
    At some point in the evening, my brother and I had separated. After the restaurant we'd gone to a bar across the street where they actually had an area designated for dancing, called a dance floor. I'm pretty confident I spent most of the night humiliating myself on it, but I had no idea when or where Greg had removed himself.
    During the ten-minute cab ride to our house, I became increasingly concerned over Greg's whereabouts. Although I have been lucky enough not to ever have had a bad reaction to the drugs I've experimented with, some people are not as fortunate. It dawned on me that he could have been freaking out somewhere in a roadside bush. Once we pulled onto the dirt road that led to our house, the cabdriver recognized the road and said he had just dropped another person here an hour earlier. Thank God, I thought, and was able to go back to my previous jubilation of being in a paranoia-free zone of euphoria. This wasn't the first time Greg and I had crossed paths with the same driver in the hours of darkness.
    A year earlier we had some hillbilly cousins from a small town outside Portland, Oregon, decide that it would be a good idea to get married. Neither of us had been invited to the wedding, but Greg called me in California and asked me if I wanted to crash. I had no desire to be in attendance at an affair that was most likely going to take place at either a VFW hall or a Chili's. He persisted in convincing me that we should go together and that it would be good material. Material for what was never specified.
    I had no real commitments at the time, being twenty and just recently moved to Los Angeles, where I was in between thinking I should get a job and getting one.
    "Fine," I finally said. "You need to use your miles for my ticket, and I'm not staying at a Super 8 or at one of our 'pseudo' cousins' trailers." I had to be very specific with Greg, as he is prone to spending as little money as possible, and that is something, try as I might, I cannot get behind.
    "I want nice dinners, Greg. No Colonel Sanders shit." I had nothing against the colonel himself but am very leery of the idea that there was ever a colonel in the first place. What kind of colonel would allow his establishment to turn into such a mockery? After a lengthy negotiation, we compromised on moderately priced dining, as long as I agreed to at least one serving of the colonel's chicken, or, as I had grown to refer to it, Kentucky Fried Pony.
    The wedding "reception" took place at a karaoke bar, which is one thing I do not and will not participate in. I've found that many of the people who have a passion for karaoke too often have misplaced confidence, which can become aggressive and at times border on sadistic. I know my limits, and karaoke is where I draw the line. I wouldn't put anyone through the hell of listening to me sing a song, and I sure as shit wouldn't wait in line to do it.
    The bartender told me the kitchen was closed, so I looked around for my brother, who was hard to find in the sea of mullets that were related to me. Since this wedding celebration hadn't provided any food, it was my duty to provide myself with some sustenance.
    I