Designer Baggage

My head was pounding.  My heart was racing. What was I doing here?  I just wanted to have a little drink after work.  You know, just to unwind after a hard day.  I went to the bar and waited for my two best friends, Mr. Belvedere and Jose Cuervo.  So what, I like the hard stuff.  No fruity girly drinks for me.  Maybe that’s why I attracted so much attention.  I looked over to the end of the lounge and spotted a handsome man.  The smooth sounds of John Legend filled the dimly lit room.  He was young, dark (very dark) with thick hair and eyebrows.  I’m a sucker for thick eyebrows.  And eyes that were deep.  So deep you could get lost in them.  We made eye contact and naturally he came over and offered to buy me another shot of tequila.  Since he was buying, I wanted top shelf.  So I told the bartender to hit me with another Patron.  He did.  We drank.  The next thing I knew I was in a cab heading uptown.  Why, I thought to myself.  Why do I do this?  Then it occurred to me.  Since the breakup, my life had been nothing but work for the last 7 years. Concentrating on my career was first and foremost in my life.  There was an occasional boyfriend here and there; nothing concrete.
So back to why my head was pounding.  I realized that I was definitely too drunk to say no to this dark stranger.  I was in the apartment of a stranger and I started to get paranoid.  Where am I?  How did I get here?  Oh, that’s right; the cab driver Akmond Abdul Whatsey-Hoosit drove us to this luxury apartment in Rittenhouse Square.  Did this brother actually live here?  Or was he house sitting?

Blame it on the alcohol, but the sex was great.  So, naturally, I put the man to sleep, left him my business card and took the walk of shame out of his apartment at 3 a.m.  The doorman was gracious enough to call me a cab so I could go back to my townhouse in Northern Liberties.  I was stupid.  It was a Thursday night.  Well, now Friday morning.  I had to be to work in 6 hours!  Pull yourself together Mia.  You’ve done this before.  Yeah when you were 23!  I’m 30, right now, but I feel like I’m going on 65!

The next morning, I mean the next couple of hours, I dragged myself into the shower and imagined that I was washing all the stank off of me.  Granted, I did have fun the night before but I was getting entirely too old for this!  A quick brush of the mouth and comb of the hair, and I was on my way out of the door.  Oh, boy.  I forgot to feed Moodie.  She’s my Himalayan. Pedigree cats are known to be very high-strung which, I quickly found, was very true.  Moodie is definitely high-strung.  Some might even say bitchy, but she can be so loving and sweet.  I think her name suits her.
I went back into the house to get her Science Diet which is the only food she’ll eat.  I know $500 for a cat is preposterous but $20 for a tiny bag of food was utterly ridiculous to me!  Nonetheless, I buy it faithfully.  While scooping the food into her dish, my phone rang.  “Who the could this be at 8:15 in the a.m.?” I said aloud.  Since I didn’t get around to paying the phone bill last month, I had no caller ID.  They tend to take away all of your “extras” until you are down to a welfare line with the intent to make you give in and pay the bill that they laced with bogus taxes and surcharges, but I digress.

This would normally annoy me since I like to be in control of who calls me but today I didn’t mind.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Can I speak to Mia?”
“Who may I ask is calling?” I said.  I had to make sure it wasn’t the phone company.
“This is Ryan,” he said in a familiar voice.
“Ryan…who?” I was stumped.
“Ryan.  Is this Mia?  Remember we met last night.  You just left my apartment three hours ago.” It was more like five but I went with it.
“Oh, hey. How did you get this number?” I said. I knew I left my business card with my cell phone number and email address.  Was he some sort of stalker? The nerve of this guy hunting me down and finding my home number!  He could be sitting outside of my house right now peeping in my window.  I should call the…
“Well, Miss Lady, you seemed to have left your cell phone here when you snuck off in the middle of the night.  I saw that the last call you made was to ‘Home’ so I took a shot in the dark,” he said.  Oops. I felt like an idiot. Luckily I kept all of my thoughts to myself this time.  Usually my filter isn’t on so early in the morning.
“Well, thanks for calling me.  I can’t believe I left my phone. I’m such an idiot,” I said.
“Don’t beat yourself up.  It happens.  I had a great time last night.  I can meet you during your lunch break today so I can return your belongings.  You seem to have left something else.”
What else could I have left behind?  I know my mind wasn’t right when I left his apartment, but I was pretty sure I had everything.  I was afraid to ask. “Uh, what else did I leave?”
“Your underwear,” he stated nonchalantly.  I almost died.