Bottle Rat Status: RETIRED

There are a lot of things that I don't want to do that I will do for my friends. Drive them to the airport at 4am, delete their ex from facebook. I would even help a friend who suspects she has lost a feminine product inside of her, because I know they would do (and HAVE done) all of those things for me. What I DON'T want to do is go to a Hollywood club.

I would have never in 2 million years thought I would ever utter those words. It seems I've come a long way from the young bottle rat* who landed in LA 8 years ago with big dreams and cubic zirconias dangling from her pierced belly button, which she exposed EVERYWHERE she went. (Yes, even at work. No, I was not a stripper... But I'm sure I could've fooled a few people.) I remember the days when my roommates and I would spend all of our money buying new outfits on Melrose so we could go to all the hot spots with our fake ID's that we bought from Alvarado Street, just to see Britney and Justin under the same roof post-breakup. (We were there the night of the infamous "dance-off," not a big deal.) So broke, we would order 1 Long Island Iced Tea and share it between the 3 of us until we found some suckers to buy us drinks. After parties in pools with married A-Listers (unknown to us.) Oh, Hollywood...

Maybe I grew out of clubbing 3 nights a week, maybe I've grown up, or maybe working at Hyde for 8 months and seeing how awful people who go out 3 or 4 nights a week are when you're on the other side of it really got to me. There seems to be a direct correlation between working there and when I became fed up. I think once you are handed a carafe full of vomit from a drunk slut without warning, the "fun" aspect of nightlife goes out the window. (Yes, that happened to me, because those things ONLY happen to me.)

Things I rather do these days: Happy Hour and pass out in my bed to questionable CW programming, terrorize kids with my affection, spend an evening at the Grove watching a movie and eating at the Cheesecake Factory. I'm happy to have retired my half-shirts to a new generation of bottle rats, and happy to be left with only stories that I can tell my grandchildren... Or sell to the tabloids.

*Bottle Rat- the girl(s) at the club waiting for guys to buy them drinks/bottles. (See picture above.)