The Drift Inn

"Heyyyyyy, hey baby!
HOO! HAA!"

I'm looking at my pictures from July 4 in Westhampton and they're cracking me up. Mine are quite innocent, however, compared to NovaCat's. Several of us are afraid for what she's going to upload. From wild taxi rides with perfect strangers to long, catcall-filled walks along Dune Road, from doing the shot ski at John Scott's to sipping martinis at our hotel, it was a bear of a weekend.

Our nightly itinerary included pre-gaming at The Dune Deck, a 20-minute walk along a highway to John Scott's, and five hours of mayhem at The Drift. I've been hearing about The Drift for weeks now, from one of my swimming buddies, and I'm happy to say I am no longer a Drift virgin.

"Going to The Drift, wanna come?"

"The Drift is where it's at!"

"You can't come here and not go to The Drift."

I had this awful picture in my head of an old rundown dive bar. I couldn't have been more off. The Drift was a larger version of a bar I went to last Memorial Day in Dewey Beach, Md., The Starboard. There were at least six or seven bars within the bar: a few inside and a few outside.

Seas of people, young and old, in all varying degrees of drunkenness, are mingling, shouting, singing, falling, dancing and even smooching. It was the Polo-wearing, preppy, Lilly-sporting, Hamptons version of "The Matrix Reloaded" dance club scene when Neo meets Trinity, but instead of dancing to the tune of Rob Zombie's "Dragula," Drifters went bananas everytime the theme songs "Hey Baby" and "Shake It" came on.

According to an employee, there were 2,000 people there on Saturday night. Even on Friday during a brief monsoon everyone, including Fashionista, NovaCat and myself, was screaming and shouting in the rain like we'd never seen raindrops before.

As many people as there were packed into the place, I never had a problem getting drinks. The only bummer is it's cash only and the ATM charges you $10 to get cash out. Fashionista took one for the team and took out a lump sum so we all didn't have to pay the awful charge.


At the night's end, I have two words for you: cab nightmare. Picture all 2,000 of these drunk people needing cabs home and there only being a handful to do the job. It was horrendous at 4 a.m. Drivers in cabs, vans and trucks pulled in in every which way, facing in every which direction to cram people into their vehicles. After trying unsuccessfully to get in several vans, I saw an empty cab and sprinted for it, scratch that, dove for it. Some policeman tried to stop me and I wasn't messing around. We got home safe and sound, but with a stowaway. This guy had no clue where he had to be, where his friends were and didn't even have a cell phone. It was pure comedy (for me, anyway). Surprisingly he didn't seem that drunk, just bummed, confused and helpless.

I am still washing The Drift grime off my body. I think it will take at least a week. I don't think my shoes will ever recover. Luckily my "dry clean only" dress survived the torrential downpour.

I asked my friend how he did this to himself every weekend and this was his response:

"How do people NOT do it every weekend? I'm just smiling the entire time I'm there."

We were smiling a lot as well.

I went to the Web site to look up The Drift address and I'll leave you with this inspiring quote/review: "Great music, lots of dancing. If you can't hook up here, kill yourself."

Enough said.