Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby Page 0,11

and hitchhike home. I don’t feel stupid until I’m locked in a bathroom stall doing drunk calculus on a paper towel to determine if I can pay both my bar tab and my card payment that month. It was cute to throw that flimsy piece of plastic with 67% APR at the bartender two hours ago, but now I can’t find my friends and I know they’ve been running up my bill all night. What if I actually get my cell phone shut off because these bitches are too stuck up for well liquor?

“Three vodkas divided by the light bill times the minimum payment plus cab fare back to my hotel—shit, I gotta go!!”

12:56 a.m.: oh, hey, there’s that baked cheese from earlier.

Seriously, what is my problem? And thank God I’m already in the bathroom.

1:10 a.m.: watching people flirt makes me nervous.

Another side effect of getting older is caring about things. I get emotionally invested right from the jump in whether or not a real love connection is being made, and my skin is crawling with anxiety over whether or not I’m about to suffer vicariously through an awkward rejection. This dude has tried to get this woman’s attention three different times after she’s gotten distracted by someone cuter, and I can’t tell from here if he’s just dumb or a predator, but he clearly thinks they had something and could have something again if she would only turn her face back in his direction and wow my heart is breaking for him. My shoulders have crept up to my earlobes, and there’s a knot of fear (or fennel salad!) in my stomach. Why doesn’t he just leave and swipe an app? She is having a very animated discussion with that new guy, and I’m so sorry, but I am going to have a full panic attack in this place if he reaches out to tap her on the shoulder again, I can feel it. Everyone thinks I’m going to eventually die of a heart attack, but joke’s on y’all—it’s definitely going to be of secondhand embarrassment.

1:15 a.m.: she left with that guy.

And now I have to sit here and commit the rejected dude’s face to memory in case I have to describe it to police later. Why am I here?!

2:47 a.m.: what the—

I feel the fangs break through my gums and a sharp prickle as hair sprouts from behind my ears and the backs of my hands. I cross my hands under the table and nod as my one friend gives me her “bitch, are you okay?” eyes, and the other flags down the waitress (is she actually our waitress?) with the universal club signal for “one of us is either going to vomit or fall asleep,” and we begin the process of collecting all our things so we can go. Where’s the charger cord for my spare battery? Whose lip gloss is this? Why is my left shoe in the farthest corner underneath this table? My vision sharpens, and I can smell every bead of sweat in the room: I am up five hours, forty-seven minutes, and nineteen seconds past my bedtime, and that is a dangerous place for me to be, awake at rat o’clock, in uncomfortable shoes and itchy eye makeup. I hear the seams of my shirt ripping as my chest broadens, tufts of coarse hair forcing their way out of the collar of my shirt. I bolt from my seat as I feel my claws split my shoes open. My flank is totally about to burst through my threadbare pants. People throw themselves out of my way as I launch myself at the coatroom, nosing through the hanging fabric until I locate my jacket (no, it won’t comfortably fit over my lycan form, but that shit was expensive so I’m taking it). I yank it free with my teeth, then rip the door to the club off its hinges and stalk through River North swatting junior partners and finance bros out of my path with my massive paws. I pause briefly to consider eating a stray dog, but honestly, it’s skinny and I don’t feel like chasing it, so I keep running until I reach my hotel. Up on my hind legs to fool the dozing doorman, then I’m back in my room where I can—muzzle retracting and haunches reverting to their gelatinous state—lie