(photo courtesy Creative Commons, Flickr/Ludwig.Toth)

This week was a bit of a dating bust for me, but I still got a really great story out of it. I did some very quintessential Los Angeles things: Went to a taping of a late night talk show, had dinner at a trendy restaurant on Melrose and was set up with the chef, went to Dan Tana's for drinks after and met some Hollywood royalty, slept in a humongous suite at the Peninsula hotel, then left the next morning in the same clothes I came in.

The madness all started Friday night.  At around 6 p.m., I went to a taping of the Jimmy Kimmel show with a friend of mine from USC.  We sat in the second row and I lost my voice a little from screaming so loudly when the audience was told to laugh.

After the show, I had to get ready for my big set-up.  My friend *Amanda, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, was going to set me up with a famous chef, *Chefie, whose name has also obviously also been changed.

Amanda's family has been friends with Chefie for a while now.  The plan was to have dinner at Chefie's restaurant, have Amanda introduce us and let destiny take it from there.  Amanda was going to have her friend *Billionaire come later to meet us for dinner.  In case the nickname wasn't clear, Billionaire is 28, has a ridiculous amount of money and shows it.   

When we arrived around 9 p.m., the restaurant was packed.  We took a table in the middle of the dining room and promptly ordered a bottle of wine.  From what Amanda had told me, I had thought that she and Chefie were great friends and that it was not going to be an awkward thing to set me up.  As Amanda and I ordered some appetizers and finished off our bottle of wine, the anxiety began to sink in.

"Wait, what if he doesn't remember me?" asked Amanda.

"What do you mean?" I asked puzzled.

She then explained that although Chefie was great friends with her parents, she had only met him once or twice. I told her not to worry, to say hello to him and that I would take it from there.  For an hour, we watched Chefie come in and out of the kitchen, and neither of us said anything to him.

Billionaire showed up around 10:30 and ordered another bottle of wine. He's the kind of guy that is a complete joy to be around, wildly entertaining, the life of the party, but for some reason I just don't find physically attractive.  I suspect that Billionaire has been in love with Amanda for a while now but she seems to feel the same way I do about him.

Chefie finally came to the table, but he was sweating and really, really busy.  To Amanda's relief and mine, he did remember her.  He looked exactly like he did on television and in all the pictures that accompanied the articles I had read about him. Chefie is maybe 5' 8", has dark hair, a round mid-section, plump face and scruff on his cheeks.  He is ridiculously charming and I instantly found him attractive.  I was hoping he would have time to sit down with us for a glass of wine but he politely declined, pointing to all the men dressed in white, running around in the kitchen.  I was disappointed but I understood.  A busy Friday night is not the best time to come by a packed restaurant and steal the chef away.

We left the restaurant and headed to Dan Tana's, an Italian restaurant and bar on Santa Monica Blvd.  The place is known as a hang out for Hollywood royalty, and it just happens to be one of Billionaire's favorite places to grab a drink.  I had been there once for dinner when I was about 8 but hadn't been back since.

The crowd was definitely older.  A mix of 50-to 70-something Italian men with slicked-back hair in suits, hipsters in torn jeans and fedoras, and two tall, super model-looking women.  Dan Tana was celebrating its 45th anniversary and in it's honor, the bartender decided to pour everyone overflowing shots of vodka. I was already a little tipsy from the wine at dinner but decided it couldn't hurt to drink free vodka.

Amanda, Billionaire and I sat at the bar drinking and having a great time talking about all of the times Billionaire has gotten out of DUIs, speeding tickets, or crashing rented cars, like the one he was driving that night.  Billionaire has a permanent home in Florida, but lives everywhere.  When he comes to Los Angeles he lives at a suite at the Peninsula hotel.  That night he was driving a brand-new Mercedes the hotel had given him for the duration of his stay.

Around 12:30 a.m., Sean Penn walked into the bar with a small entourage.  I was promised a celebrity encounter at the bar, and I got one.  I was thrilled, high on life and decided Mr. Penn's presence deserved another round of vodka shots.

At 1:30 a.m. Amanda and I were drunk.  Not just drunk, but singing-and-hugging-strangers drunk. Billionaire suggested that we all go back to his suite at the hotel, a short distance from the bar.  Amanda and I flanked Billionaire on each arm, and walked noisily through the hotel to his suite.  

We stumbled into the enormous room.  There was a living room with a fully stocked bar, a small study area, a fireplace--already lit--and a small patio.  The bathroom was the size of my bedroom and the master bedroom in the suite opened up onto another private patio with a Jacuzzi.

Amanda went straight to the bar, opened a bottle of Grey Goose as long as my leg and started shaking martinis. I didn't think I could drink more after the vodka shots but I did.  I somehow found room for two more martinis.

Billionaire realized how drunk Amanda and I were and decided to take advantage of the situation.  He suggested that we get into the hot tub.  Amanda and I obviously didn't have swimsuits but thought in our drunken state that it would be a good idea to get in topless.  So, I stripped down to my underwear, didn't even bother to cover my breasts and walked from the bathroom into the Jacuzzi.  The three of us sat there in the bubbles drinking our martinis as I tried not to laugh at Billionaire's lame attempts at kissing Amanda.  At one point he was sitting behind her and tried to reach around to cup her breasts with both hands. I was very uncomfortable, being the third wheel in the hot tub, and after about 30 minutes of awkward, I told them I was going to bed.  I got into the plush white bed inside, tucked myself under the covers and tried to get some sleep.

A couple minutes later Amanda stumbled into bed, with Billionaire close behind her.  I guess he kept trying to touch her because she kept rejecting him.  "No, not tonight." "No, I just really want to get some sleep." "Aren't you tired?"  After a lot of restless kicking, grabbing and laughing we all managed to fall asleep.

The next morning I woke up hung over, disoriented and wondering where I was. A hand was draped over my stomach and I was pushed over to the very edge of the bed.  I slowly lifted the arm off of me and looked to my left.  Billionaire was spooning Amanda, who had moved as close as she could to me, and away from him.  They were both completely out. Billionaire was snoring loudly. I was immediately thankful that neither Amanda nor I had let ourselves have sex with Billionaire or do anything close to it.

I woke Amanda and told her we needed to peace as soon as possible.  We got dressed quickly in the other room and told yelled a goodbye and thank you to Billionaire.

We looked a mess.  We were both wearing our clothes from the night before: Amanda in a short black dress with knee-high boots and me in a low-cut grey tank, black leggings and stiletto ankle boots. Last night's makeup was still smudged on our faces.  We walked through the hotel, getting stares, gasps and a couple of pointing fingers from all of the WASPs having breakfast and drinking their coffees.

I got to the valet and realized I had no valet ticket from the night before.  I was asked for my last name, but had to explain that it was different from Billionaire's last name and that because I came in at 2 or 3 a.m. that morning I wasn't given a valet ticket.  The boy in the valet uniform looked at me, puzzled, and told me he would look for my car and come back in a couple minutes.

Amanda and I stood there outside of the hotel, completely embarrassed and wishing more than anything that two pairs of gigantic sunglasses would fall out of the sky and onto our faces.

10 minutes went by and the valet boy finally drove up with my car.  I ran over to it, relieved, then infuriated when he wouldn't let me get in.  He asked for my driver's license.  Annoyed, I pulled it out of my bag and handed it to him, having to explain that I was not in any way related to Billionaire, nor was I his wife, and therefore had a different last name.  Dissatisfied, he then asked for my registration.  I pulled it out of the glove compartment and shoved it in his face.  By now, I was insulted and beyond angry.

After looking at the registration, he apologized and let us go.  I turned to Amanda, who was already sitting in the passenger seat laughing.

"What the hell is wrong with everyone here?" I asked.  "I've never been so insulted in my life."

"Think about it," she answered.  "Two girls come in late at night and leave the next morning in the same clothes they came in with...we just got Pretty Womaned."

I learned a lot from this weekend's shenanigans: Don't stalk a celebrity chef at his restaurant and expect him to pick you over an order of foie gras, don't accept every free shot of vodka shoved at you, don't go topless in a stranger's Jacuzzi and don't ever, ever leave home without a gigantic pair of sunglasses.  At least I'll have a good story for the grand kids.