The Night We Met Tyler: Part 1

As you know by now, Belinda and I frequent a small bar two blocks away from my apartment: Lush!!! It has one pool table, two big bathrooms, and three cool bartenders. The best part is that it's not your typical "South Beach" bar by any means. It's a great place for low-maintenance-personality types; a haven for genuine people with real hang-ups and occasional social-anxiety disorder. We went to our home-away-from home a few Tuesdays ago, and as we walked in, were greeted with an awesome thank you from the HBIC (Head Bartender In Charge) Justin, for finding him a ska band to play the following night. He was so happy, he gave us each a beer on the house as we took our seats at the bar. I said to him, "God, I really hope they don't suck... I've never heard them before but they came highly recommended from a reliable source, so they should be... sorta good...?" He said, "I don't care, I don't care, I'm just happy to have a live ska band here tomorrow night!!" Earlier when I said, "God, I hope they don't suck," the bearded guy sitting at the bar to our right laughed at my comment. I thought, "Well, there's a friendly fellow..." Little did I know that we were going to be spending the next crazy week with him and his friend. (That's not a euphemism; his "friend" is actually his buddy that flew into Miami the next day.)
So Belinda and I sat there making small talk with Justin, while Bearded Dude drank his beers and politely eavesdropped. Justin asked us where we were from, and Belinda said, "I'm from Jacksonville, and she's from Miami." He looked at me and said, "Miami? Really?! You don't look like you're from Miami." Belinda said, "Well, she does have those chola eyebrows..." I laughed and said, "These eyebrows are from South Central, honey!" Justin, Belinda, and Bearded Dude all laughed out loud; they understood that my eyebrows are a status symbol one should not fuck with. 
Since we don't own TVs, Belinda and I always get sucked in to the hypnotic flat-screen TV that hangs right over our seats at the bar. They usually have an EXTREME sports reality show playing. We sat there silently watching skiing on TV and then for some strange reason, we started talking about dying, specifically, ways we would prefer to die. Because naturally, skiing makes me think of death. 
When it comes to death and dying, my feelings and thoughts on the matter have changed over the years, except for one thought that's remained the same: I hope nothing happens to my eyebrows. (One day I was thrift shopping with my cousin and brother. Diego grabbed a funny hat and plopped it right on my head. The look of horror on my face was his cue to take it off immediately. He said, "Sorry! I forgot how you are with germs and other people's hats." I replied, "No, it's not that. My eyebrows! Did you mess up my eyebrows?!" I was more concerned that my eyebrows had been temporarily messed up than if some tiny critter laid eggs in my hair. True Story.)
I was telling Belinda that I would rather be set on fire than die by drowning, and we were discussing the logistics of the two, when Bearded Dude started laughing and said something like, "Are you two really talking about ways to die?" Belinda said to him, "Yeah, she says she would rather die from a fire than from drowning, which I think would be less painless and more peaceful." So the two of them started trying to convince me that I was fucked up for choosing fire over drowning, at least, that's the way it felt. Those goddamned bullies. They had me imagine myself dying from drowning, floating towards the bottom of the ocean, at which point my lungs began to close up inside my drunk birdcage chest. After I could breathe normally again, the three of us were emotionally attached for the rest of the night.


to be continued.... (in other words, I forgot details of that night [don't judge] so I gotta call my partner-in-crime Bel.)