Good morning. A big Happy Birthday to the woman who brought me into this world, my mom was born on this day some years ago in her own backyard. Love you, madré.

So last night I met up with three buddies I graduated with back in 2012 from CSUMB’s Teledramatic Arts & Technology department (seriously guys, just call it “Film.” Oh, that’s right, they did change it to Cinema Arts. Muuuuch better). I can thoroughly recommend the following drinks:

• Stone Delicious IPA (it really is)
• Idiot IPA (rather fitting)
• Jameson on the rocks (my go-to)

Needless to say, I got a little drunk. Okay, not a little. Pretty drunk. Pretty damn drunk. But I played it safe and Uber’d home. Let’s talk for a second about Uber preferences, shall we?

I don’t mind a politely chatty Uber driver, so long as they can sense when the conversation has come to its natural end and don’t force further verbal diarreah. But I don’t mind getting to know a little bit about the person carting my ass around. Yes, I love feeling like a CEO badass everytime an Uber picks me up, but it doesn’t mean I gotta throw shade at the driver. I’ve met really interesting Uber drivers. Some really sweet people. Met scary ones, too. But I’ve been fascinated every time. The balls someone must have and the patience they must possess to go around picking people up in their own car floors me. Like, you don’t know who you’re about to pick up. That can get a little hairy, I imagine. But I’ve gone off track. Back to preferences.

I don’t mind music, so long as it’s not too loud and, in the words of Rob Gordon, “I just want something I can ignore.” Trying to force your shitty rock tastes on me, or insisting your car is the new fuckin’ “spot,” does not make me want to give you five stars.

Last night was something I’d never seen before, however. I got in and there were three screens, all playing Terminator: Salvation. Let’s just sit in that for a second. Terminator. Salvation. Did I get a ride from the one person who actually saw that movie? And liked it enough to be like, “I’m gonna share this movie with the world by playing it for my passengers.” I’d complain about someone forcing their shitty taste in movies on me, but instead I’ll complain that, despite having the movie playing and the volume up, my driver proceded to talk to me the entire drive (or maybe I did the talking, I was very drunk). It’s not multi-tasking, it’s defeating the purpose.

But on the real my driver was very nice and it wasn’t a bad ride in the least. Just a little strange, wouldn’t you say?

Anyways, I stumbled in as quietly as I could, trying very hard not to wake the wife. I was coherent enough to make the wise choice and take some aspirin before bed, lest I wake up feeling the gong going off in my head. I opened up the bottle and thought, “these aspirin are much bigger…and grayer… than what I normally take.” Popped two in my mouth, and they clung to my tongue, one didn’t go with the flow of the water sadly, and I can still taste it now.

I woke up this morning to see the real aspirin bottle on ‘Stine’s nightstand (or as we call it in our household: Ibeprofin) and headed for the kitchen to see what I really took.

Doggy aspirin.

It was bound to happen someday. Keeping the pet medication with the human meds is playing with fire. And last night I got burnt.