I ran behind Liz already seated on a stool at the bar sipping her usual drink of vanilla vodka and Diet Coke and waved to T.J., the bartender I was taking over for tonight. Thankfully the men didn't have to wear the same uniform. I didn't think I could handle seeing a couple of these guys in tiny shorts with their hairy balls popping out of the leg holes.

On a slow night, I would have just hopped my ass up onto the bar and swung my legs around to get behind it, but the place was packed tonight. I had to do it the right way and go under the hinged, lift-top part of the bar at the opposite end. I jogged past some poor drunk schmuck that held his head in his hands, moaning, and made a mental note to call him a cab if he was here by himself.

Once I was behind the bar and got the skinny from T.J. on the customers here tonight and what they were drinking, he left to go home and I got to work getting refills for the regulars. One of the waitresses brought in an order for ten shots of the cheapest whiskey we had. I rolled my eyes and went to the end of the bar where we kept all of the whiskey. What is wrong with these people? Cheap whiskey equals a bad hangover and having the craps all the next day. I started lining up the shot glasses on my tray when I heard the drunken moaner speak.

"We never found her, did we big guy?"

Oh Jesus. I hate the really tanked ones. I hope this guy isn't a crier. He sounds pitiful. And if he pukes on my bar I’m going to rub his nose in it like a dog that shit on the carpet.

"Are you speaking to anyone in particular or do your shot glasses usually respond?" I asked without looking up as I added a few more shot glasses to the tray and reached under the bar for the bottle of Wild Turkey, trying not to make gagging noises as I unscrewed the top and the disgusting smell wafted up to my nose.

I saw Return of the Living Drunk whip his head up out of the corner of my eye while I filled the glasses.

"You know, the first sign of insanity is when inanimate objects talk to you. Or maybe it's the first sign of alcohol poisoning," I mused to myself.

"Who the hell is ordering that rot gut? They're going to have the shits all day tomorrow."

I laughed that even drunk, he was able to come to the same conclusion as me. Picking up the tray of shots and a bowl of lemon slices, I turned around to tell him so - and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight before me.

What. The. Fuck?

I felt the tray full of glass and booze tipping out of my raised hand but there was nothing I could do to stop its descent to the floor. I stood there like a statue, staring straight ahead as the glasses shattered around my feet and liquid splashed up onto my legs.

5. Snickers Finger Arm Teeth

It happened in slow motion. Well, for me it happened in slow motion. Probably because the amount of alcohol I've consumed tonight has digested half of my brain cells, and I feel like I'm in the Matrix.

I wonder if I could lean back on my bar stool and do that cool move from the movie where I dodge bullets in slow motion while suspended in mid-air? I need a cool black leather jacket and my hair slicked back. I wonder if they used wires or if that Keanu guy could really bend like that? I bet he does that yoga shit. He looks like the kind of guy that does Downward Facing Dog.

Heh, heh, downward dog. That's funny. I should get a dog.

Wait, what was I doing? Oh, yeah. The bartender turned around and stared at me and before I could even get a good non-drunken haze look at her. I watched the entire tray of shots tip right out of her hand. They crashed to the floor before I had a chance to react, the sound of glass breaking rising above the drone of music and loud voices.

I should have jumped into action and vaulted across the bar to help her. Because you know, right now I had cat-like reflexes—if the cat drank three times its weight in tequila because it just found out its girlfriend of two years never wanted to have kids and decided to turn her va**na into a wiener-warmer for half the population of Toledo.

I should get a cat or two. They're pretty low maintenance. Maybe I can even teach it to piss in the toilet like Jinxy from "Meet the Fockers." Can a guy turn into a crazy cat lady? I suddenly pictured myself as an old man shuffling along the sidewalk covered in cat hair and meowing at everyone who walked by.

On second thought, no cats. I shouldn’t be allowed to think when I’m drinking.

The bartender ducked down behind the bar, and I forgot about cats pissing for a minute so I could stand up and lean over as far as I could without the bar stool flying out from under me to see if she needed help.

And by "help" I meant checking to make sure she wasn't bleeding and then sitting back down to before the room tilted too far to the left and I made an ass of myself.

My good deed ended before it began when a tiny little thing with long blonde hair, who looked strangely familiar, got behind the bar and walked over to the spot I was trying to see and looked down.

"Jesus, butterfingers, are you..."

She was cut off by a hand flying up from behind the bar, latching onto her forearm and yanking her down roughly. She disappeared with a yelp and I shook my head at why women were so weird. And such whores.

Fuck you, Tasha. And f**k cats that don't piss in toilets. And f**k you, Keanu Reeves, and your dog.

Drew sat back down next to me and yelled out, "Yo, bartender!"

The girl with the blonde hair popped up suddenly from behind the bar with her mouth wide open, staring right at me.

"Can we get a couple shots of tequila?" Drew asked her. She didn't even look in his direction, just stared at me without even blinking, like we were in some sort of f**king staring contest.

I'll show her. I'm the mother f**king king of staring contests.

Drew leaned over and snapped his fingers in front of her face a few times.

"Hellloooo?"

Dammit! I blinked.

But she never moved from her spot kneeling behind the bar with just her little head peaking over the top of it. What the f**k was wrong with this woman? She was starting to freak me out.

"Um, tequila please?" I asked questioningly, enunciating each word as best as my drunken mouth would allow. So really, it came out as "Ufff, shakira pea?"

A huge psychotic smile broke out on her face and she quickly stood up.

"So what can I get you?" she asked me brightly, resting her hands on top of the bar and leaning into them.

Drew and I slowly turned to face one another. We both shrugged and I turned back to look at her, but not before noticing that Drew was busy tucking his shirt back into his jeans.

"T-e-q-u-i-l-a," I said very slowly, wondering if this bartender was drunker than me.

Her smile got bigger if that's even possible.

"Whiskey, coming right up!"

She quickly spun around and immediately tripped over what I assumed was the other bartender still down there picking up broken glass. Blondie caught herself from falling, huffed and reached down to pull the other girl up. There was some swearing, loud whispering and tugging back and forth before she was finally able to pull the other one up roughly. Her long, wavy brown hair hung in a curtain, obscuring her face as she stood there with her head down. More whispering and erratic hand gesturing continued between the two of them, then they each turned and stomped off in the same direction, both of them taking turns smacking the other in the arm as they walked away. My eyes went immediately to the brunette’s ass in the tiny black shorts as she walked away.

“I hate to see you go, but I love watching you leave,” I said with a snort.

Drew punched me in the arm and I reluctantly looked away from her great ass and long legs before I started drooling.

"So, did you strike out with the waitress?" I asked him as we waited for whatever it was the chick decided to bring us to drink.

"No, I just f**ked her in the bathroom. She tasted like beef jerky and Captain Morgan. Strange, yet oddly satisfying. She threw up when she came though. She's got issues."

"How in the f**k has your dick not fallen off yet?" I asked with disgust.

"Don't be a hater just because you dipped your wick in the same crotch-rot for two years. I like to test the waters, sample the merchandise. Plus, I've got a stamp card for the Quickie Mart by my house. One more box of condoms and I get a free twenty ounce of Pepsi."

The ladies were back with our drinks before I could come up with a clever retort. The short blonde with the staring problem slammed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label down on the bar, while the other one stood a few feet behind her with her hair still shading her face.

"So boys, what are we drinking to tonight?"

Since she wasn't staring at me like that creepy clown Pennywise from the movie "It" anymore, I figured she wasn't dangerous.

"If you share a drink with us, I might be inclined to tell you," I said with a wink.

At least I thought it was a wink. She was looking at me funny, maybe I just squinted really hard. I tried again.

Fuck, why was it so hard to f**king wink?

"Is something wrong with your face?" she asked.

I had been out of the game for too long. I couldn't even get drunk and flirt anymore. I could however, get drunk and look like a stroke victim. I just shook my head and pointed at the shot glasses, signaling her to pour them.

"You'll have to excuse my friend here," Drew said with a pat to my back. "He's still morning the loss of a shitty girlfriend and he's not happy I made him go out instead of sitting at home watching "Beaches" and diddling his vagina."

"Shut up, dick-fuck," I muttered as I grabbed one of the shots the blonde poured.

Turning her head, she called to the girl behind her. "Get your sweet ass up here and do a shot with these lovely gentlemen."

"I'm working, Liz. I can't drink," she said, gritting her teeth.

My ears perked up at the sound of her voice like I was a dog and someone just said, "cookie." The shot was halfway to my lips and I held it in place as she took a step forward and shook the hair out of her eyes.

Holy shit, she was beautiful. And not beer goggles beautiful. I was pretty sure that if I was sober she’d still look good. Long, wavy brown hair, smooth skin and the most gorgeous brown eyes I’d ever seen.

"Oh shut your yap. You know the Fosters could care less if you drink while you're on the job. You're like the daughter they never had."

Those eyes. There was something about them that made it impossible for me to look away.

"Liz, the Fosters have a daughter."

"Patty plays softball and can bench press two hundred and fifty pounds. Her dick is probably bigger than this guy's," she said, hooking her thumb towards Drew.

"Heeeeey," Drew said defensively.

I couldn't stop staring. I just wanted her to look at me. Why wouldn’t she look at me? Her friend wouldn’t shut up and she wouldn’t look at me.

"Sorry, big guy. I'm sure you have a very nice dick."

"Well, thank you. How about you and I…"

"Don't even finish that sentence," she said with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. "I saw you sneak into the women's bathroom to f**k Jerky Jade not more than twenty minutes ago. Are you seriously flirting with me right now?"

"Jerky Jade? I thought her name was Alison."

"You're such a man whore. Her name is Jade. She always smells like beef jerky so we call her Jerky Jade. And you stuck it to her. You stuck your penis in her meaty vagina."

While Drew and Blondie continued their verbal sparring, I continued to stare at the quiet one. I wanted to touch her hair and see if it was as soft as it looked. I bet I could use her hair as a pillow, a silky, furry hair pillow that I could finger all night to help me get to sleep.

No, that doesn't sound creepy at all. I should really stop drinking. Who keeps putting alcohol in my alcohol?

"Jesus, Liz, keep it down. She's right over there."

My ears perked up like a dog’s again when she spoke and pointed in the general direction of the chick that smelled of Slim Jims.

I hope I don't start barking.

"Oh, please, like she doesn't know about the smell of meat products wafting from her lady parts. I think she rubs bologna down there to attract men. Lunch meat is her sex pheromone."

The brunette shook her head in irritation. "If I do a shot, will you please stop talking about Jade's disgusting va**na and never, ever use the word meat product in a sentence?"

"Woof!"

Three sets of eyes all turned to look at me.

"Did I just bark out loud?"

Three heads bobbed up and down in unison.

"I dated a guy once that had wet dreams almost every night. I'd wake up to him humping his pillow and howling in his sleep," Liz said wistfully, taking the heat off of me for a minute.

The beautiful one came right up to the bar then and grabbed the shot glass closest to me but still wouldn't look up. She kept her eyes down in the glass like it held the meaning of life.

"So, what are we drinking to?" she asked the shot glass.

"Do your shot glasses usually respond?" I asked with a laugh, throwing her words from earlier back at her.

Her eyes shot up to mine and I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Her eyes were so bright and shiny they looked like melted chocolate.

Fuck. Why the hell was I obsessing about chocolate again? It had been years since I thought about that night and now all of a sudden I couldn't get away from it. I thought I smelled it earlier and that stupid flashback floated through my mind, and now I was comparing this chick's eyes to it. It was chocolate for fuck's sake. It was everywhere. There was nothing special about chocolate.

Except she had smelled like chocolate.

After that night, I’m ashamed to say I went through a phase for a few months of smelling lotion and soap at every single store I was in but they never smelled exactly right. The only thing that came even remotely close was real chocolate. I used to wonder if she rubbed Hershey's behind her ears instead of perfume. And then I'd wonder if she tasted like chocolate, and I'd have to rub one out after kicking myself in the ass for not tasting her that night.