You had better've brought your 'A' game, and if you didn't, you better recognize... because nobody puts baby in a corner.

The title will be explained in a little bit, but here's the story of it's origins.

My cousin Tarreck has been promising that he's going to come visit for 2 years... this weekend he followed through. AND IT WAS GLORIOUS!

Tarreck stayed in the Hard Rock Hotel, where they are all about creating a realistic rockstar environment for the guests, down to having 4 people sleeping all in the same bed, rolling bitches who are ODing on whatever substance out through the lobby on a gurney at 3 in the morning, and having staff that look like hard-core roadies.

This is the view from the room:


So after Tarreck showed up late, we had a couple rounds at the hotel, and headed off to meet up with Meljoy, Brian, J-dub, and Patrick (J-Dub and Patrick are suspiciously absent from any pics in this post...)

Meljoy kinda scares me sometimes, but dammit is she ever adorable.



We all know that when the liquor gets flowin, Liz gets affectionate... But I figure you gotta start the love with the guy who finally made the trip to the windy city to see his little cuz.



Lizzle and Meljoy: We know that this pairing is a household name by now. (You can just call us some sexy bitches!)


Mel and Jon.


Melanie DeBoer approved!


Kristi, Brian, and Liz.


Tarreck shows us his version of the "white-man's-overbite" on the dancefloor.


Liz and Brian... (I told ya, Liz + alcohol = affection)


Mel is more than a little terrifying sometimes.


There was a lot of love in that room.


Tarreck wants to know, "Which way to the beach?"


This is where our toes go, Liz, Mel and Brian at Nick's Uptown.


Mel and Brian.


The love is comin' back around!


Jon and Tarreck are thinkin happy thoughts at Nick's

Now Mel's starting to get affectionate... I keep telling you, there was a whole lot of love in that room!!


Liz and Brian (Again)


Liz and Tarreck (Again.)


Tarreck, Meljoy, and Jon (Now those are some sexy beasts!)


So that was Friday night out at the bars... We did a traditional drunken trip to IHOP, and then we all went back to the Hard Rock to sleep it off because we knew we had to make it to the Cubs game in the morning... (The 4 of us spooned across one bed, because that's how the hard rockers do it!!)

Saturday morning, we split up and refreshed briefly, and then we all met at the friendly confines for a rousing game of baseball.


The famous Wrigley Field scoreboard.

It was a pitching match-up battle royale, featuring Dontrelle Willis for the Marlins...


And Greg Maddux for your Chicago Cubs!

Only a section away was my good buddy Vince Vaughn. (When your seats are as good as Vince Vaughn's, you know you're doing pretty damn good.)


The fab four at the friendly confines.


We were pretty hungry after the game, so we went to Yak-Zies, and we threw popcorn at each other. (Mel was good at that game!)


Mel is a hard rocker, in case you didn't know


Clearly, Jon is a hard rocker, too!


After Yak-zies, it was time to nap-&-rally for round 2 of the drunken adventures in the Windy City.

We decided to play it a little more low-key for round two, so we headed to Southport for dinner and drinks... This guy brought his inflate-a-date to Cullen's with him. (Funny thing is, this inflate-a-date is actually about 20 IQ points smarter than the chick Tarreck is dating.)

While at Cullen's we decided to play a game during the course of the evening, trying to see who could more frequently use the 3 phrases "I hope you brought your 'A' game," "You better recognize," and "Nobody puts baby in a corner," in a way that made sense over the course of the night. (Hence the interesting title of this post.)

After dinner, and a few rounds, and lots of laughs at Cullens (Mostly at the expense of a VERY VERY drunk girl who was flailing and getting her groove on with everyone and everything... including the floor) we decided we wanted to go bowling. And when you're on Southport, you've been drinking, and you decide you want to go bowling, there's only one place to go: Southport Lanes.

Unfortunately, the bowling lanes were occupied all night, so we made our own fun at the pool table... As you can see, Tarreck is a real pool shark!


The boys were strategizing... I'm pretty sure it didn't work.

Mel REALLY wanted to bowl, so she decided to sport these sexy socks, despite the fact that we never actually touched a bowling ball or bowling shoe all weekend. (You know you're thinking it, so I'm gonna say it "SEXY, kinda.")


The boys were celebrating something... I assure you it was short-lived, as over the course of 5 games Mel and I (and our stunning pool skills) showed the boys how it was done. The record for the night was Ladies 3, boys 2. ("You better recognize!")


My cousin is kinda molesting my friend...


So then my friend takes to molesting my cousin...


Mel is still rockin the socks, and posing with her pool cue.


Back at the Hard Rock, we did a couple more rounds in the lobby bar, because that's how the hard rockers roll!!

These 4 show the hard rockers how it's done.


Mel decided that since she's drinking "ass in a glass" that she's going to take the lazy way out and just leave the glass on her "top shelf"


Here we can see Super Tarreck, and his evil nemesis Dr. String. (I really hope they were pretty drunk because if you look closely, you can see that they are sporting the velour cape at this point)


Shortly after that, we decided that 4:30 was late enough, and that we'd shown up the hard rockers enough for one night, so we decided to pack it in and head back up to the room to reprise our 4-person spooning gig. And after a few hours of sleep, a lot of giggles, Tarreck making a few E.T. noises while he slept, and Jon talking in his sleep, morning came, and Mel and I once again found ourselves with the morning giggles.

Tarreck took off without much ceremony, as he is known to do, and so Jon, Mel, and I hung out for a little while.

Here, Mel can be seen rocking the side-ponytail, and enjoying the amusements of "Front Desk" magazine.


We closed out the weekend amusements with breakfast at Anne Sather, and parted ways...

All in all, I'm calling it a successful weekend of amusement in Chicago!


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Weekend quotes:

"Uhhh... I just realized that I'm chewing the same gum I was chewing last night" ~Mel on Sunday morning

"Mel, get over here, and make an honest woman of me!" ~ Liz

"C'mon Mel, mount up!" ~Liz

"I've got a fever, and I know the cure! MORE COWBELL!" ~Tarreck and Jon

"What are you drinkin' over there? [Mel: "bailey's on the rocks"] Oh, so what you meant to say was that you're drinking ass-explosion... You know you coulda just ordered a glass of diarrhea and it would've tasted better." ~Tarreck.

"You can just call me 'Big Daddy Spankbottom!'"~ Tarreck

Tarreck: "Hey, Jon. I've got a serious question for you. If you went camping with somebody, and you got drunk, and you woke up the next morning and your ass hurt, would you tell anybody?"
Jon: "Are you kidding? Hell yeah I'm telling people! I'm putting it on a t-shirt with my phone number! 'I got drunk on a camping trip and woke up with a hurtin' ass! CALL ME!'"

"Tarreck, are you still seeing that same girl, the one who is dumber than a bag of hammers?" ~Liz

"Hey, don't get mad at me because your girlfriend is dumber than a sack of hair." ~Liz

"Oh that girl is a real oxygen robber." ~Liz

"What is it in your family? What? When you're born into this family do they actually give you a book that has all these phrases in it?" ~Jon