XIV

Summer weekends in Los Angeles aren't a flip flop affair for the young and restless Hollywood dwellers.  They are a full blown rave.  From the rooftop hotel lounges to the mansion pool parties - you will find girls in bikinis with stilettos and guys still afraid to let go of their fedoras.

...and then comes the 5 o'clock wind down of a pool party on Sunday.

After a weekend of drugs, tanning and the same edm song playing on repeat, one would imagine the hollywoodians would crawl back into their apartments to prepare for the workweek.   But not these fist pumping diehards. 

Come 5pm the doors of XIV open up and the neon crowd storms in to spray champagne, and well, get even more blackout wasted than they did on Friday and Saturday combined. 

Now, you may be wondering how a sweet, adorable, level minded girl like myself is so well informed about this 'XIV' hooligan hangout.  I'd say curiosity killed the cat, but I have gone once every year.  I'd say it's tradition that I go once a year, but after each time I vow never to return.  I'm just going to blame it on my roommate begging (mentioning she might go once via text) and me not being able to pass up a fist-pumping, champagne-spraying, ludicrous-in-every-sense-of-the-word, time.

So here are my warnings to anyone who has the same neon bright idea as me when they reopen next Summer:

1.  It's called FOURTEEN.  That's XIV in Roman Numerals.  XVI is sixteen.  Stop ruining Hollywoods reputation for intelligent and motivated residents (look I made a funny) and stop #hashtagging if you can't get the damn name right.

2. You must mentally prepare for what is going to happen to you.  There will be a theme.  And it will be scary at times when you find yourself sans friends in line for the bathroom.  There will be drugs.  Dont drink anybody's "happy water". It's not the same idiot who wrote #xvi mistaking smart water.  It's drugs. And if you drink it the theme will become a bit more overwhelming. 

3. But YAY there will be a theme!  Have fun and dress up!  Or bring 50 dollars to spend on a 4 dollar neon crop top tank top at the door.  Either way, hooray!

4. Girls.  Your hair will get soaked.  in champagne.  bring elastics accordingly.  

5.  Really, people buy shitty champagne and spray it everywhere.  There's even a slogan - "Save water, spray champagne" And it doesn't end.  They even sell umbrellas!!  From 5-10 there's a constant 'shower' that is completely unavoidable.

6. At some point, a hot girl will walk up to you and slap a wrist band on you that says 'and we're still going'.  You think aww fun, a momento of the great time I had here.  No.  Get this.  All of these people... GO TO A CLUB from here, and DRINK MORE.  I told you it was ludicrous.  This wristband is your entry into the club.  And, I know, now I'm just talking crazy, there are after parties AFTER the club. Let.  That.  Sink.  In. 

So did I have fun?  Well.  I put my number in two peoples phones and they came up "chelsea xiv" and "blonde xiv".  Two different people.  This makes me worry a bit.  I missed the gym Monday morning, had the shakes for two days, ruined a tank top, and saw some questionable things that have forever desensitized me in Hollywood. 

But F yeah it was fun.  A slogan, 'Save water, spray champagne' ?!  And a legitimate open air Sunday day club only open in the summer and only accessible to girls, promoters or dudes with absurd amounts of money?  Let me just say it is an experience.  And one I wouldn't want to have more than once a year.