Chelsea Handler - My Horizontal Life - A Collection of One-Night Stands

What I could barely make out as a woman walking her dog toward me crossed to the other side of the street upon seeing me. A guy in a passing car slowed down and yelled out the window, "Rough night?" This was humiliating. I had never been outside this early before and I didn't like the crowd.

It was one thing to wander around in an M &M costume on Halloween or maybe even the day after, but it was a whole other turn of events for me to be doing it in February. To make it worse, with every step, the thick cottony upper-body part of my costume, the actual M &M, kept riding up above my butt, and I kept having to hold it down with one hand behind my back. And this little M &M had to pee so badly.

When I arrived at Holden's, I immediately started throwing rocks at his sliding glass door. "Holden!" I screamed.

"Keep it down," one of his neighbors yelled, then came out on to his balcony. "Lady… oh," he paused. "How would you like it if I called the police?"

"Oh, please, go ahead," I said. "And tell them what, there's a crazy M &M outside?"

The neighbor shook his head and went back inside.

After what seemed like a year, Holden finally came out, rubbing his eyes. As soon as he saw me, he burst out laughing.

"Can you just please come down and get me?" I said. More laughing. Now he was doubled over on his balcony, his face turning red.

"You know what, asshole? Can you laugh at me after I come inside instead of while I'm standing on a street corner?"

Holden went back inside only to come back out thirty seconds later with a camera. After his third snapshot of me at my worst, another neighbor appeared on a balcony. "Here we go again! Can't you and your girlfriends just give it a rest?"

That snapped Holden out of it. He went inside to open the door for me. "I'm not his girlfriend," I shouted up to his neighbor.

Holden came down and let me in. I went inside and peed for close to five minutes. This outfit was a disaster and the panty hose were starting to give me a rash.

"Take me home. I can break into my kitchen window," I told him.

I needed to be in my bed, at my house-now. I had been through enough humiliation for one day. And it was maybe time to start focusing on the path my life was taking.

We got to my apartment at around eight-fifteen. I asked Holden to wait outside just in case I couldn't get in. It shouldn't be hard, I figured; since I lived on the first floor, all I had to do was push myself up to the kitchen window and climb through. I punched in the code to open the gate and made my way over to the kitchen window.

It was higher than I had remembered. I looked around nervously. I had never done this before. I knew it was possible because Lydia had done it once, but then again, she had help. Instead of going to get Holden, I tried on my own. It was unlocked, but I needed to hoist myself up in order to squeeze through. Halfway through, my M &M costume got stuck. The wiring that kept the shape of the M &M wouldn't budge. I either had to take it off my head or climb back down. If I took it off, I knew I could get in-I was already halfway there. So I squirmed out of the costume.

That's when I heard the back gate open and shut. There was the sound of approaching footsteps and then they stopped. Here I was with green tights and no underwear hanging out of my kitchen window with my head in my sink. "Holden, if you take a picture…"

"It's not Holden," said the voice of my ex-boyfriend/ landlord.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Please tell me this isn't happening to me.

"Do you need a hand, Chelsea?" he asked.

"No, thanks, I'm cool," I said offhandedly. As if people entered their apartments like this all the time.

He sighed deeply, ruffling his keys. Then he opened my door, entered the kitchen, and pulled me through. When I got to the floor I kneeled down with my arms around myself in order to cover my bra and my beaver that you could easily see through my tights. He had taken the M &M part of the costume from outside and put it next to me.

My ex didn't say anything else, but he stared at me for what felt like an unnatural amount of time with a very calm, almost scary look on his face.

"It's not what you think…" I started to say. I wanted to tell him that despite appearances, I had actually been a very good girl last night and hadn't slept over at some guy's house and that really he should be applauding my heroic effort to get home. I wanted to explain everything, but judging by the look of despair on his face, I knew it would be pointless. It would all sound ridiculous.

"Just don't," he said. He went and got a towel, put it down next to me, and left.

I sat on my kitchen floor wondering what kind of people I was friends with. I also wondered if I was ever going to get married. After about an hour, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Why not look on the bright side? I had just spent my second night in bed with a stranger I hadn't had sex with. You don't have to be a genius to recognize that I was obviously on some sort of a roll.

SHONIQUA AND I had somehow managed to get jobs working on the same television show. Now we were actually getting paid to act stupid, and we were very excited about it.

We were on a plane to San Francisco, where we would be shooting on location for three days. I was telling her about the latest humiliation with my ex and the M &M costume.

"Bitch, you're really gonna need to get your shit together," she said, as the flight attendant handed us warm peanuts. "Can you believe this ho?" she asked the flight attendant. "I bet you're not running around in Halloween costumes in the middle of winter losing your drawers."

The flight attendant smiled at Shoniqua, then looked over at me and frowned.

"Lower your voice," I told Shoniqua. "You don't have to tell me I'm an idiot, I already know that. The problem now is that the landlord thinks I've been sleeping around since we broke up and I haven't."

"Fuck him," she said. "He was a pussy, anyway. He didn't deserve your ass and I don't give a shit what he thinks."

"Thanks, Shoniqua."

"What I would like to know is when are you gonna realize that you're a grown-ass woman?" she asked me.

I had never heard anyone call me a "woman" before and it scared me. I still thought of myself as a little girl-or boy.

"What does that mean?" I asked her.

"I don't fucking know," she said. "Don't you want to get married?"

"Yes, of course I want to get married, but does that mean I'm not allowed to go out and have a good time? Am I supposed to just marry any schmuck that comes along? And by the way, here's a news flash, Hammertoes. Nobody wants to marry me, anyway."

"You just love men too fucking much," she said. "You're like a man."

"You know what?" I told her. "It's better to get in the game and love men than to sit around on the sidelines complaining about them all the time like half of our girlfriends. Would you rather I was bitter and talked about how all men in L.A. are scumbags like everyone else in this town?" Now I was building momentum. "Have I ever once complained about being lonely or said that I was giving up? Have I?" I had started shouting and there were tears welling up in my eyes.

"All right, settle the fuck down with the crying. You obviously need to get some ass this weekend, and I'll get on it the minute this plane lands."

"Thank you," I said, relieved.

The flight attendant leaned into our row, looked at us disapprovingly, and asked us if we wouldn't mind keeping our voices down.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "She just got out of prison." Then Shoniqua made a gang sign and the flight attendant took off in the direction she came.

We landed in San Francisco and were driven to the W Hotel, where everyone working on the show was staying. We usually traveled with four or five producers, the director, and a couple of location scouts.