A year or so ago before we ever dreamed we'd be living in the suburbs we trekked out here to go to dinner with some suburbanite friends of ours. After whooping it up at Benihana (you can tell this evening was off to a good start) we decided we weren't done partying yet and that we'd like to tie a few on at a bar.

Of course, the closest thing we could find to a bar was this structure called The Living Room. It was basically a rectangular building, like you'd usually find a Pier One or something in, situated in the same parking lot as Benihana, and across from a mall. Class out to here, obviously.

So we walk over and discover that this hot spot comes complete with bouncer and little velvet rope bordered entry walkway. And then a coatcheck station where the workers all but rip your coat from your back. They seriously would not let you in with a coat (for fear of an outbreak of hidden gun gansta violence, I'm sure).

We girls beat the boys over (they were driving cars from one side of the parking lot to the other, and perhaps debating whether to avail themselves of The Living Room's valet service) and within three seconds of walking into the "club" proper we were staring at one another with "Thank the lord our single days are behind us" looks. The clientele of the ritzy neon-lit bar consisted basically of haggard overly hairdyed and spritzed divorc�es on the make, slick-haired guys in too-tight jeans and bushy mustaches, and ancient silver-haired sugar daddies.

And then we turned around and discovered that the main body of the "club" was furnished in a fetching collision of Hobby Lobby rejects, furnishings from a motel lobby circa 1985, and high school dance picture props: white painted wooden trellises twined with plastic green ivy, coffee tables made by balancing a sheet of beveled glass on top of two plaster ionic columns, couches striped in salmon, mauve, and turquoise...and, of course, strands of white Christmas lights everywhere.

And the clientele in these sections ranged from more desparate older singles to some sort of wedding party to a pack of prom kids. Black stretch pants and leopard-print blouses marched (or rather, danced; there was a pathetic gym-flooresque dance floor as well) side by side with puffy satin magenta bridesmaid dresses.

It was snowing by this point, so there was really no alternative but to stay. We staked out a few couches and sat back to watch the show.

mr rampy: (watching a particularly clown-whorish patron put the moves on a guy with a pornstache) So how many diseases do you think are floating around in here?

fellow girl in our group: (eyeing geriatric leerer) Including Alzheimer's?

At one point I had to use the bathroom and found myself trapped in a line of women who seriously thought they were in Studio 54. Several of them were dancing in line, bouncing their knees to make their booties rotate. They were all dressed in the skinniest of cigarette pants in various shiny fabrics and then skimpy little flashy tank tops. I'm sure in their mind's eyes they were all Carrie Bradshaw out on the town being hot. Although I kind of doubt that Carrie ever drank a Bud Lite from a bottle with a straw while waiting in line inside the bathroom itself, as one gold lam�-panted goddess did.

I was so super-psyched to use the potty after these chicks that I wrapped the seat with three or four layers of paper. Then I returned to our vantage point by the door in time to see a group of sweatshirted and sneakered boys refused entrance by the bouncers.

In the end, this wasn't the suburb we ended up moving to, but rest assured we do our going-out in the city.