Someone, Quick! What's The Phase Of The Moon?

You know, I'd always intrinsically believed I'd fare pretty well if suddenly caught in the middle of a riot. It was just one of those things I thought I had covered. As of last night however, the first time I ever saw (in real life) someone dent a car using another person, I've begun to have my doubts.

It wasn't a particularly bad area of town. Actually, quite the opposite. Two months ago, I would be skulking around this club all night muttering under my breath about the upscale drink prices. Scratch that - two months ago I would have made sure to polish off a 12-pack before I even showed up, which somehow wouldn't (despite my flawless planning) slow down my consumption of upscale drinks, nor the subsequent muttering about my rapidly emptying wallet afterward.

It was one of those nights where being so motherfucking sober felt like a fork and a chalkboard were sexually experimenting inside my head. I'd been having trouble sleeping, but wanted out of the house so my wild, panicked, lizard-like eyes could settle on landmarks outside my apartment and I could air out my pasty, shriveled form. I felt I needed to at least attempt a feeble pantomime of normal human interaction for the evening.

And this, of course, is the night everyone decides to act straight clownshit.

Some bitch is screaming. Screaming. Inches from my face. Okay, not really. She is halfway down the stairs which are the only exit, and apparently believes she needs to resolve all of her domestic issues with a second party that is behind me yet not visible in the screeching voice, volume, and manner of an intoxicated territorial primate. Which, technically, she is. She's not screaming in my face now, but it's coming.

Now, I can take absolutely no credit personally for the billions or so years of evolution that resulted in me currently being an upright, speaking animal with a wallet full of maxed-out debit cards. But damn if I didn't feel put upon by being forced to maneuver around this National Geographic-worthy display.

After completing the trial of the Stair Banshee, I reach the door that marks the countdown until I retreat back to my bitter little cave. I'm warmly visualizing me wrapped in my blanket; a lonely little burrito. Like a cozy middle finger pointed in the face of, well, everything.

Then I heard more screaming from outside, and a thump. A heavy, metallic one.

Calling what was going outside a fight wouldn't do it justice. Observing it objectively, it was almost like a game or a dance, or even some sort of insect swarm. There may have been a straightforward fight at some point, but it was long past. It had become some sort of event, and everyone wanted involved. There must have been two dozen people involved, tousling in the street. Punches were exchanged between people that seemed as dedicated as square-dance partners; within moments they would turn on someone else with no apparent rhyme or reason.

And inside me, I felt a pull. Secretly, I wished someone involved would call me out, would challenge me. I didn't particularly like that feeling. I wondered how many of those currently involved went in to "break it up", secretly hoping to catch an elbow or something, so they could justify going in swinging.

Then the dude bounced the other guy off the car fender, which caused some sort of fountain of douche to explode from the club next door. As the crowd expanded to a size that could justify being labeled a "riot", I realized that if I didn't go home then I was gonna get myself into trouble, sober or not.