And, as if that weren't a goddamnuff, this particular female has a thing for unicorns. It is a creepfest to be sure. There is a bluey, suedey unicorn poster on the wall, a unicorn lamp on the night table, a series of unicorn figurines scattered on various shelves and mantles, and a unicorn bedspread featuring multiple unicorns in various unicorn poses: such as unicorn-galloping, and unicorn-grazing, and unicorn-sparring-with-other-unicorn, and worst of all unicorn-close-up-with-unicorn-looking-all-cute-and-shit.

Walk of Shame Fact #67: Hangovers and unicorns do not mix.

Your bedmate awakens. To your horror, she wants to cuddle. Not that you are surprised (after all, her bedroom is painted peach), but cuddling and hangovers do not mix either. You know instantly what you must do. You must break free from the cuddle, exit this bizarro Glass Menagerie, and get your ass home, on the couch, with a bottle of something wet and cold and remain there forever.

First, you tactfully elude the cuddle maneuver by reaching for the glass of water on the unicorn-littered night table. Then you disentangle yourself from her clammy flesh (slowly, slowly), whisper a feeble excuse about some meeting you have to attend, then walk out the door and emerge into the cruel, cruel southern California pre-noon sun.

Thus begins the walk across the batholith that is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. . .

Step after painful step – like a wounded fugitive slogging through a misty bog – you surge forward. Step after torturous step, as the bright-eyed, chipper, happy morning people all turn to gaze at the freak in scuffed black boots, wrinkled shiny shirt, and worst case of bed-head since Sid Viscious walk-of-shamed from Nancy Spungen’s on October 12, 1978.

From out of the crowd that has begun to form around you, an old white-haired hag steps forth and starts screaming.

"Look, look -- look at the devil that carouses all night seducing unwilling women with drugs and alcohol!,” she howls. “Look at him slither through your neighborhood, leaving behind his trail of immoral slime,” she says as you slink away dragging the slippery, tangled tentacles of your disgrace.

Walk of Shame Fact # 82: While walking the walk of shame, there is all too much time to remember and replay the mistakes of the night before:

Step by step, and you begin to piece together the antics of the night before (First, it was Lemon drops and Laughter; Al Green on the jukebox. But then it became something else, something dark, something like shots of tequila and tongueswapping on toadstools with Tool blasting in the background.)

Step by excruciating step. You see a blistering Brazilian beauty soaping her Peugeot in the car wash bay. Forgetting yourself, you smile and say hi. But your dehyrdated snarl sounds like a thousand tortured demons piping from the fissures of Hell. She drops her foam brush and flees in terror. You lower your head in shame – like Frankenstein’s first look into the mirror – and continue your desperate journey.

Step by step by unspeakable step, your throat screams for something that resembles a cold, wet fluid. Step by step by appalling step, and you realize -- it did not seem this far to walk last night, when we left the pub and headed toward her house – two drunken lustbugs swaggering down the street -- stopping only to push her up against a wall and clumsily grope each other in the dark – it went much quicker then.

Step by head-pounding step. Until you see something ahead: Can it be?? Yes. Yes! It is the voluptuous curves of the golden arches. And you fall to your knees and thank the Lord saying, "Surely they must have something cold and wet to drink here, perhaps an Egg McMuffin to soothe your wormy bowels?

You get on the line and wait.

The cashier -- a fortyish, decrepid, chubby stringy-haired, flea-bound hellhound -- glowers as you order breakfast. She knows what you have done and does not approve of your lifestyle: dancing and drinking till sunrise; swooping on unsuspecting woman; seducing them with booze and bravado.

Walk of Shame Fact #1: You did nothing wrong. You had fun, she had fun. Hold your head up and walk of shame like a goddam man, man.

You finish the last bite of simulated-hash-brown patty and walk toward the door (slowly, slowly). As an after thought, you hoist a middle finger toward the corpulent cashier wench, as if to say, “Yeah I got laid last night. You should try it sometime lady.” Then walk out the door, raise your head high and resume the arduous – yet proud -- walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

EJD
03/27/02