Picture this:
Spring 2013 - A young woman wrapped in a monkey blanket, new
to Spain and very unaware of the fact that you are NOT supposed to eat the
suspicious looking pita-pit sandwich’s that are on the side of the street.
Dying of hunger she thought, “what could go wrong?” A lot. A lot can go wrong.
Yes maybe she did throw up once in the bidet, but realized it soon after then
slowly shifted to the toilet. At 4am you
would find this poor young woman passed the phuk out naked in a bathtub for a
solid 4 hours. After a long night of vomiting and having fantasy dreams of a
sexy bottle of Pepto-Bismol this now raisin of a woman would have to crumble
out of the bathtub. She then somehow had to find the strength to get on a 17-hour
plane ride with 120 of her closest friends from high school. This was the last
time I was in Spain. So obviously I wasn’t terrified at all to go back.
Immediately upon arrival I broke my first rule. Don’t eat
sketchy food. Granted at this point I was a mojito with legs and my drunk ass
just assumed that the Indian place that was open at 3am was trustworthy. You
would think that any place that has three giant rotating meat sticks would be
OK. I successfully convinced my body that what I was eating beef tenderloin
instead of what I can only assume was roasted possum tail.
Thank goodness I speak Spanish so I had the capabilities to
drunkenly yell at cat-callers in broken Mexican slang starting with “EEEEYY
PINCHEeeeEE”…I was a little rusty.
I came to Barcelona with a new gal pal I met through the
program here. Her name is Molly. We bonded because we’re both alcoholics.
Although she has the stamina of a 16-year old Ethiopian marathon runner and I’ve
been using my tennis shoes to separate my nutella and peanut butter. She is
also known for the amazing and charitable work she does on Tinder. I am garbage
compared to her.
We were drunk for a total of 78 hours and this is why:
Molly got the insider knowledge to find a man named Aashi on
Facebook and become good friends with him. We were told “Aashi shows Americans
a great time”. Hinting at the fact he could have been a serial killer or a male
prostitute, we were down for anything. We stumbled on a Facebook page called
‘AASHI Guest list’. This is the sort of Facebook page that you see and you
think, “well that can’t be real”…but I’m here to tell you it is. Very real.
Here are a couple actual lines from the page:
“Celebrate the night like superstar with AASHI”
“Bottles and bottles of Absolute vodka FOR FREE”
“Skip the long line with AASHI and get VIP”
“We are party for America”
After this discovery, there was no hesitation. We needed to
find Aashi. We followed direct instructions to go to a pregame at a place
called Le Cyrano, where we were told “They give you bottle of alcohol for 3
Euro and cup. So fill cup to the top with alcohol!” And that’s exactly what
happened. Molly and I began the night with five cups of tequila. I have no idea
how that bar makes its money. So we were wasted by midnight, then everyone became
silent as a gentle breeze brushed our cheeks and the smell of Versace cologne
filled the bar. Aashi had arrived. There was a swarm of American girls kissing
his feet and ass, so Molly and I waited patiently to meet the legend. He was
small, like an Indian Lord Farquaad. But his tender voice and silk smooth hands
could make a homeless man feel like a rich privileged white teenager. He wore
not just one pattern scarf, but two. Revolutionary. After he agreed to be my
dad, we finally understood the mythical being of Aashi.
As Molly and I loudly sung ‘The Ants Go Marching’ following
our fearless Aziz Ansari look-alike emperor and a pack of 30 frat bros behind
us, we made our way to the house of all things holy: Club Bling Bling. Aashi
goes up to Flavor Flav (the bouncer) says literally one word and with a slight nod as
promised gets us all in for free. These are the things I remember:
Vodka was poured in my mouth. //Danced with construction
worker who had no clothes on. Seemed very cold. //Got a mojito. Aashi put vodka
in it. Gave me a VIP wristband. //I thought I was picking up a fushigi ball,
but it was just broken glass. //I lost Molly. // I got someone’s blood all over
my left hand. //Found Molly, poured vodka in her mouth. // Realized it was my
blood. // I asked the construction worker if he could help me remodel
my human sized doghouse. Rejected. // Went to talk to the lady in the bathroom
about denial and how that leads to life long depression. // Fire. Lots of fire.
//I made toast at 6am. Went to bed.
This is what every night consisted of. It was a complete
shit show and the director and choreographer was Aashi. Here is photo proof:
Don’t worry I asked Aashi and, yes, he is accepting interns
but the next opening isn’t till 2023. He’s looking for other small Indian men who
radiate power and sex appeal and know how to set up beer pong correctly. All
other inquiries go to https://www.facebook.com/aashi.barcelona/