Worst. Party. Ever.

OK, look. I used to work for an organization that threw super-hip parties. Like, we rented The Factory once for a party. The Andy Warhol one. (Or, you know, one of them.) SO I KNOW HIP PARTIES. And honestly? They are fun to set up and run.

Last night we went to a party in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area. The location alone was so hip that the door said it was a doctor's office. Oh, and the door? Locked.

The invitation (more on that) said 9pm onward, so we assumed that the party started at 9:00 in the pm. CRAZY, right? We got there at 9:30 to the locked door with no sign or other indication that we were in the right place, other than some valets sitting around shooting the shit and not parking cars. We wandered their way and discovered a hipster standing with them, who told us they were opening the doors at 9:30. Being a TOTALLY UNHIP BITCH, I said that it was after 9:30, the invite said 9:00, and I didn't want to wait. I believe I was given the evil eye, but Will only noticed that the valets laughed in an agreeing sort of fashion.

ANYWAY, someone let us in through a terribly hip entrance in the alley and we went into the "space." This is the kind of location that can only be called a "space." It was TRAGICALLY HIP and there was open fire. That was pretty damn cool, actually. We stared at it, mesmerized, until this woman named Noelle came and introduced herself to us.

This was not Noelle's party. Oh, no. The hostess hadn't shown up yet. Hopefully from embarrassment. Noelle was the party planner. As in, "Events By." And let me tell you, I could do her job ten times better than her, even though I have no contacts and am not remotely hip. Also, I am skinnier than her, but that is a petty victory because I bought jeans on Friday at the Gap, where they size things small to make you feel good about yourself, and I am two sizes larger than I have ever been in my life and I'm not even pregnant.

*deep breath*

Let me tell you about the invitation Noelle designed. And let me start by saying that I could have done better given five minutes, MS Word, and a printer. The front (?) is this awful teal blue and has the names of the hosts on it, written as "Mia & Michael" - only that isn't their names (only Noelle's name has not been changed). If I received it I would assume it was a Save-The-Date for a wedding. The back (?) has a navy blue stripe across the top and a teal stripe - probably a different shade - across the bottom. The background is white, which is the nicest thing I can say about this thing. The text is black, except for random words and bits of punctuation (and I do mean random) which are bright red. Also, the text is not aligned in any uniform fashion. Some of it is centered. Some of it is aligned left to a centered margin. Some of it is just aligned left. And the actual words are stupid. "Promoted. Party. Period." (The full stops are red, by the way. For some REALLY HIP reason.) Then it says "WHEN," "TIME" (which is redundant and party of "when"), and "WHERE." The "WHERE" giving no indication that the address is incorrect and the "space" is actually in the alley behind the doctor's office. ALSO, "TIME" said 9PM ONWARD, as I already mentioned. It occurs to me that there was no reason for block caps, but she used them anyway. Maybe they're friends with the random bits of red ink.

So, the invitation sucked, the party sucked, and there was fire. Any reasonable person would have set the place on fire, using the invite as kindling. NOT ME. I wandered around, trying to give the place a chance. It was the baby bottles sitting on display next to the "margarita in a bottle" that did me in. And even then, I waited for Will to say we could go. And really, I don't think we have never skidaddled so fast, even given the two to three minutes spent staring at the fire. I think we were back in our car within five minutes of admittance to the "space." Home in 45. (Which, amusingly, is the estimate I gave Darren.)