Happy Fourth of July to Uber – From, My $200 Ride

by Alyssa Ramos

What you do for the Fourth of July typically depends on your relationship status. If you are in one, you’re probably watching fireworks at the beach with your bae (new word I learned from teens at Vidcon that means “before anyone else”). If you aren’t, you’re probably drinking your face off in celebration of #MERICA, f*k yeah!

I was supposed to fall into the first category, but of course the day that I had a very nice, calm Fourth of July BBQ planned with my bae…we get into a huge fight, leaving me no option but to go partake in the Malibu Fourth of July parties with the rest of the LA scenesters. I’m not going to lie, I knew damn well that it was probably a bad idea, but I had that ‘I’ll show him’/’I hate everything’ mentality that typically leads people to do really stupid things that they’ll later regret. For me, it was spontaneously going to Malibu, and taking an Uber back to West Hollywood when rates were 5x the normal amount, costing me a lovely $200.

The good news is that everything was REALLY fun up until that point. Luckily I had happened to be sitting with a few girls who already had Fourth of July party plans when my lovely bae decided to fight with me, which worked out wonderfully aside from my tendency to go home at 10pm.  We started out at the Bootsy Bellows pop up at the new Mastro’s Ocean Club in Malibu, which had floor to cieling windows and an outside patio that provided gorgous views of the ocean and the deceptively warm-looking beach below it. It was already packed with people, many recognizable from the typical events and parties in LA, and many looking like they were trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I may have secretly wished Bieber was there instead of Selena Gomez, but at least she too was having anti-bae fun.

Apparently it was supposed to be a surprise that Calvin Harris was going to be performing there later that night, and while I really love raging to house DJs (sarcasm), we had more stops to make, and headed off to the next Fourth of July party. Since my Fourth of July plans were made literally, last minute, I had no idea what was really going to happen besides me drinking a lot of vodka. So when we got to the 1OAK pop up at Nobu and it was even more packed at the door than Mastro’s, I was a little intrigued/terrified.

I definitely felt like the typical cliché LA party girl being a part of a chain of girls pushing through to the front, but thanked the door-guy-lords that the girls had already RSVPed to attend. Yes, I am aware of how pretentious this all sounds, but I was upset so I’m allowed to. Turns out the reason why this door was so strict was because it was the Fourth of July party that all the celebrities were planning on going to, which made me feel even more like an LA party girl in addition to extremely irrelevant.

Unfortunately due to my poor night vision and lack of f*cks given, the only celeb I saw was Rob Pattinson who was doing a terrible job at disguising himself with a hat…or maybe he also had a lack of f*cks to give which is why he was wearing a hat. I actually Googled to make sure that it was even him before writing false information, and discovered that he was in fact there, and so was Chace Crawford, Courtney Love, Ryan Phillippe, Elle Fanning, Paris Hilton, Ellen Pompeo, Brody Jenner, James Marsden,Mel B, and also Chris Brown and Jamie Foxx who apparently gave a surprise performance.

No idea where I was for all of that, but it sounds fun. OH WAIT. I remember where I was – stuck in traffic in a $200 Uber home at 10pm because I was drunk, tired, hangry, and pissed about watching fireworks alone. Well alone minus the 1,000 people. Eh, I guess it was a pretty good night. Minus the Uber. And the bae. Great story, right?