Random Reader Reaction

As a kid, the sign of the forthcoming weekend came to me in the form of Stephanie Tanner. She would appear on the television, and the young herald’s gentle hair tossings would wash away a week’s worth of 5th grader stress and promise me two days of freedom. Now, the harbinger comes to me in the form of an afternoon email from one of my boys:

From: Dan Friedberg (IBD) [mailto:dan.friedberg@morganstanley.com]
To: jeff.chang@gs.com, abhishek.trivendrum@baincapital.com, Merriweather, Chip (IBD) [mailto:Chip.L.Merriweather@morganstanley.com], Quincy Ludmiller III (IBK), hmaarlow@jpmchase.com
Subject: Tonight.

Bottle Service at Marquee?

TGIF! And I still get just as aroused. I immediately respond:

From: jeff.chang@gs.com
To: Dan Friedberg (IBD) [mailto:dan.friedberg@morganstanley.com], abhishek.trivendrum@baincapital.com, Merriweather, Chip (IBD) [mailto:Chip.L.Merriweather@morganstanley.com], Quincy Ludmiller III (IBK), hmaarlow@jpmchase.com

Subject: Re: Tonight.

Down like syndrome, sons.

I click send and push off of my ergonomic foot pillow with the balls of my feet and lean back, sinking deep into sweet Aeron mesh bliss. I cherish the moment, closing my eyes letting my mind rest for the first time in what feels like days (and literally might be). I am officially incapable of concentrating or doing anything productive from this point on. Good thing I’ll still be at work for 5 more hours until around 10:30.

I spend the rest of the day/night fantasizing about the night to come. My eyes glaze over as I stare at my screen. Long strings of Excel cells remind me of lines as long as those at the new Trader Joe’s and my days as an intern when I used to wait in them in front of nightclubs, futilely trying to pair up with groups of girls and bribe greedy bouncers.

Fortunately, the scene quickly changes, and I see my current self in slow-mo, winking and hand-gunning a Long Island meathead and his broke-ass JAP girlfriend as I pass them, rolling 8 dudes deep into Marquee. Thank the Lord for bottle service! I picture my entrance, an expectant glance around and a quick pinch of the nose still slightly numb from awkwardly keycardbumping (on my 3rd one, it really messes up the magnetic strip) in the cab over. “IBD in da house!!” I shout and do a mini-roof-raise.

I slip out of the dream briefly and attempt to regroup and do some work, but the musing quickly resumes as the screen’s cells now start turning orange and magenta and begin bouncing around psychedelically. They dance about the worksheet merrily and begin coming together, forming two pixilated vase shapes…carafes. Just thinking the word “carafe” makes me giddy. My mind starts to see 2 sweaty, curvaceous pitchers being brought over to our table and placed on a pure white napkin. I relish the innovative glass layout, a fan of the triangle surrounding the ice bucket, but pleased with stoic “M” formation.

After the hostess pours our first round, I can even hear the subtle clink as our section is velvet-roped off by our personal bouncer and the not so subtle clink as my boys and I cheers: “To Banking and Bitches.” I delight in the smiles of my buddies and notice one is still displaying his work building badge. “Will that help with the hoo-ha’s?” I ponder the briefly. Peacocking or negligence? I decide it most certainly will help either way. I chug down half my drink and am officially amped—nothing is as exhilarating as pumping a body that has been virtually immobile for 70 hours full of drugs and alcohol and letting it loose on a roomful of money hungry psuedostars. Someone get a camera and put this shit up on lastnightsdoochefest.com—this is the real NYC nightlife.

The reverie plays itself out in a movie-style montage with Eminem and Nate Dogg’s “Till I Collapse” as the soundtrack: I drink 6 Ketel-cranberries; I grind awkwardly with 3 high school seniors (who claim to be 22, of course); and I tell three of my friends to pick up a few shares of CSC (eat my ass Sarbanes-Oxley).

When I finally get shaken conscious by a fellow analyst, I still have a huge grin on my face as I awake. I find out we’ve sufficiently face-timed and pry myself out from underneath my keyboard tray, do a quick downward facing dog, and shake it out. I roll, ready to live out what I’ve been dreaming about all day and all my life…unless my MD calls or emails, of course.