Rio Room--fail.

Maybe it was the $10 beers, the 4 girls I saw fall over from sheer inebriation, or quite possibly the 6 inch heels that I had opted to wear to improve upon my 5'3" physique, but if you ask my opinion, Dallas' new "hotspot," Rio Room is an epic fail. "A Vegas nightclub" is how it was described to me and I guess I should have known that any place that was like Vegas but not Vegas was sure to backfire.

After waiting in line with my 3 gal pals for 20 or so minutes, we entered the smoke (not cigarette, actual smoke machine) filled room and were immediately forced into a crowd full of $30k millionaires and young girls who at that point didn't know wine from water. Trying to get through the dance floor and to the bar for our first round was like being birthed. Or so I imagined. $42 and 4 drinks (3 beers and a vodka tonic) later, we were making our way through the crowd to a 2.5 square foot patch of floor where we decided to plant ourselves. Within 30 seconds of standing there, I literally became a pole for the poor girl next to me to lean on. With mirrors on every wall to confuse the crap out of you, music so loud it's just better not to talk, and zero room to stand because the bouncer clearly can't count as high as the maximum occupancy, we decided to make a bathroom run. Surprisingly enough, the bathrooms were quite pleasant. Nothing to write home about, but it was an immediate escape from the chaos that awaited me once I left the stall. So with one big chug of my Red Stripe and an agreeing eye from my girlfriend, we made our way back through the birthing canal and out of the Rio Room. Never to return again. Maybe that's not true. Maybe I'll revisit this "trendy" little spot someday. All I know is that it will require me to go deaf, dumb and blind first. Perhaps then, I'll understand the hype.