The Journey

It's a great night, the liquor is flowing, you look great, you are surrounded by all your friends and best thing of all, you just picked up a hot chick at the club. As the night comes to a close and you pay your tab you realize that now its time to take said chick back to your place. And like Odysseus returning from his triumph at Troy, your Journey will be filled with as many obstacles.

This humorous and heartbreaking adventure is often overlooked by Hollywood. Movies generally focus on the pick up with a brief sex scene once you have reached your destination (if you are lucky). Rarely is the Journey itself explored. Which is weird. I mean there are enough awkward situations in the Journey that even Steve Carell would feel uncomfortable. Thus, it is my duty to you, my loyal readers (all five of you) to provide you with a map to help you home on these fun nights.

Many times just leaving the club is a perilous situation. For one thing you have to avoid her friends. Fellas, learn this, every girl you hook up with has one of two friends. The first friend is the friend that is falling over drunk and your girl now needs to go home and take care of her (the indirect cock block). The other friend is usually shorter, fatter, uglier and more sober than your girl (she's probably more sober because all that extra weight she has makes it easier for her to metabolize alcohol). This girl is Cock Block (with caps and no "the" before it). She will try to convince the girl you are with to go home alone. The first step of any successful Journey home is to avoid Cock Block.

The next challenge in the Journey is finding a cab. This can be especially tricky if its raining or snowing. The trick to finding a cab is to walk far far away from the club. This is good because it puts space between you and Cock Block. It is also good because walking or strolling can lend themselves to much more playful forms of conversation than angrily waiting for a cab. Take this moment to bitch about why clubs close so early, or laugh about where your friends are (not her friends, she might get worried), or if you want to convey class and well-traveledness talk about how much easier it is to find a cab in Prague or Geneva or any other European city.

The easiest part of the Journey though is the cab ride home, as long as you follow some of these rules. Do not let her use her phone, Cock Block is most likely texting her. Do not look at her when you are waiting under a street light, she's not as hot as you think she is. Do not talk too much, you risk wanting to throw her out of the cab. Do not display too much PDA, it's not your car, have some respect to the cabbie.

Of course there are other concerns. If you have a roommate, a heads-up before you get home would be nice. Sex-Proof your apartment before you go out (clear desks and any surfaces you might want to use and make sure you have clean sheets and no dirty underwear on the floor). Make sure you have money for the cab ride home.

Of course, none of this really matters if you can't pick up someone in the first place. If you find this occurs too much may I suggest skipping the club tonight and hitting up the gym, consider plastic surgery or read something so that you can at least pretend your literate (girls seem to dig an appropriate amount of intelligence in a guy).