Wherehouse?

I was invited to a friend of a friend's birthday party a few weekends ago. It was held in a warehouse, which sounded hip and Warholian, so I was down.

The warehouse was off the beaten path in a sketchy area. As I described to my roommate, the other closest establishment was a gentlemen's club. This euphemism was generous, since it was trashy; the sign read Live Nudes: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!

We weren't even fashionably late to the party, yet it was already in full swing. The running joke was that I was going to pick up a hottie that night, but that Melinda was going to have to ID them first. Indeed, the crowd was young. Like underage young. The most common age was probably late high school/early college. It seems that somehow word of this shindig spread via MySpace.

If it were my call, we would have bailed immediately. I may only be a recovering high school teacher, but I still instinctually try to avoid and prevent the corruption teenagers. At the same, it's not my place to grab red cups from children.

But whatever, we made the most of it by people watching and making snide, elitist comments about how much better us mid-twenty-somethings were than people there for the free, un-carded booze -- even if we were perhaps more pathetic for staying there. When the booze ran out fairly quickly, we decided to stick it out, assuming that that would be cause enough to whittle the young crowd down. Unfortunately, it must have still been before curfew, because the crowd never shrank.

We knew the DJs, who were spinning good music, so we danced as if nothing were awkward, interrupted every few minutes by the overpowering, unpleasant gust of a fog machine. Aside from the fog, I found myself having a good time, embracing the ridiculousness of it all.

But then the music came to a halt. The host announced that the police had shown up and that all people were going to have to pass through a check point, so that all underage kids needed to stop and sober up quickly! Uh, easier said than done.

I panicked. If the police were going to look for someone to hold responsible for this mess, it might well be the oldest people in the room: my friends and me. Fortunately, it didn't come to that, but we still had to do the walk of shame as everyone filed out. Apparently, the "checkpoint" was just a manufactured scare tactic. I counted eleven police officers standing along the wall on the walk out and ten patrol cars parked just outside the warehouse. If I was embarrassed earlier, I was doubly mortified by this point.

I've got to be a bit more wary of invitations I accept... and even more wary of social engagements in warehouses.