Side Quests

Some of my favourite nights don’t actually happen at the party, the bar, or wherever we originally planned to go. They happen later.

Last night I hung out with Ruby (Surprise, surprise) and as usual, it was the best. We sat near the beach, watched the sunset, sipped on wine, etc. Something I love about hanging out with Rubes is that there is not a moment of silence. We've always got something to say, a story to share, and an opinion to voice. There is also something else I love: The car ride home.

Ruby’s sister picked us up and Ruby and I ended up in the backseat with the music blasting. Within about thirty seconds we were already yelling the lyrics to Club Can’t Handle Me like we were performing at a sold-out concert instead of sitting in the back of a car somewhere in Sydney. There’s something about those drives that I genuinely can’t explain. The windows are usually down, the cool night air rushing in, and the streets are almost completely empty. Sydney feels different that late at night; quieter, slower, like the whole city is winding down while we’re still buzzing from the night.

Ruby and I sit there in the backseat, half singing, half screaming the lyrics to whatever song comes on next, huge smiles on our faces and our cheeks hurting from laughing. Sometimes we’re laughing about something ridiculous that happened earlier in the night, other times we’re just being chaotic for absolutely no reason at all. Every now and then we’ll drive past a street or some random place that holds a memory from another night, something small or stupid that only we would remember and suddenly we’re both cracking up like it just happened five minutes ago. Sometimes we’ll even ask Ruby’s sister to detour somewhere on purpose just so we can drive past it again.

Those little nostalgia drives always turn into the funniest conversations.

For some reason, those moments in the backseat always end up being a real highlight of the night; Music blasting, windows down, and laughing about things that probably wouldn’t even make sense to anyone else.

Like the time Ruby and I had to walk back to the house in the rain. It should have taken about fifteen minutes, but somehow we managed to stretch it into thirty. Instead of rushing home like normal people, we kept stopping every few metres to film TikToks. The rain didn’t stop us either. If anything, it just made the whole thing funnier. At some point we were completely soaked, hair ruined, shoes making that squelchy noise every time we stepped, but neither of us cared enough to stop.

The highlight of the walk happened when we randomly came across this massive standing spotlight that had been left on. It was just sitting there, lighting up the street like a stage. Naturally, Ruby and I took this as our cue to perform.

We stood directly underneath it and started giving full solo performances, one after the other, as if we had an audience of thousands instead of a completely empty street.

Looking back, we were probably disturbing the peace in the most ridiculous way possible: two girls standing in the rain under a random spotlight at night acting like we were mid-concert.

But in that moment it was absolutely hilarious.

Then there are the food side quests.

Stephen and I have developed a bit of a tradition of getting spring rolls after clubbing. I’m fairly certain the spring rolls have made an appearance on this blog before. It’s never something we actually plan, it just sort of happens once the night starts winding down.

At some point one of us will say, “Should we get spring rolls?” and suddenly we’re walking there like it was always part of the plan.

By that point in the night we’re both slightly tired, slightly delirious, and somehow everything feels a bit funnier than it probably should. Sitting there eating spring rolls at some ridiculous hour of the night, we end up talking about the most random things, replaying moments from earlier, analysing things that probably don’t need analysing, or laughing about something small that suddenly becomes the funniest thing in the world.

There’s something about those little food side quests that just feel right at the end of a night out. Maybe it’s because you’re starving, maybe it’s because the night is winding down, but everything feels calmer and a little bit funnier.

I think most people would agree that the parts of a night out we remember the most aren’t always the ones we planned.

The nights themselves are always fun, that’s why we go out in the first place, but it’s sometimes the little moments around them that end up sticking with you.

They’re small, slightly chaotic moments that no one really plans, but they can really shape the night.

Sez