1. Don’t Be Afraid To Add a Twist
First of all, you have to remember that this is YOUR time. This is your time to get out and celebrate being a woman in the most important way possible: drinking Appletinis! Or if you are a real pioneer: drinking Appletinis with a twist! That is what I, Susan B. Anthony, drink. (In fact, if you want to find a kick-ass recipe for an Appletini check the latest issue of my feminist mag: Revolution, Appendix D: The International Council of Women’s Guide to Getting Wasted).

2. Listen to Your Jams
Next you have to make your iPod playlist. Girl, this is no little thing either. It sets the mood. If I learned anything from the Seneca Falls Convention, it was that you have to set a mood because it lets guys know, as you drive past in your yellow Mustang with the top down, that you are in control. An essential song is “It’s Raining Men.” You can even make it every other song on your playlist. Sacagawea also suggests “I Will Survive”—which is good but implies some kind of heartbreak or whatevs. So I can’t endorse it as hard as she does. But I will tell you anything is better than the traditional Indian rain dance type of music she puts on her pink iPod nano. After all, we want it to rain men, not rain, obvs. Another one of Sacagawea’s favorites is “Suffragette City.” I can only guess that she likes it because the “oooohs” and “wham bams” in the chorus remind her of her own language. However, I checked the lyrics on the Internet and discovered that the song was written by a lady named David Bowie, who isn’t even a little bit Indian.

3. Follow the Leader
You will also need to designate a leader. Sacagawea always thinks she should be the group leader because she led Lewis and Clark across America carrying a baby on her back. That is ridiculous because GNO should have nothing to do with babies and weird helpless exes. Sometimes I have to remind Sacagawea that the “B” in my name stands for “Bitch, pleez” when she starts to get on my nerves about being the leader, or tries to impress me with her long brown hair (which is clearly a weave).

4. Be Sexy (in the City)
A fun thing to do is to pretend that you are all characters from Sex in the City. I am usually Carrie, because I am a better leader. Sacagawea is Charlotte because she can be dumb sometimes. For example, I have to order drinks for her because she still doesn’t know the difference between an Appletini and a Mango Margarita. So I have to say, "Girl"—which is what I call her because I don’t know how to pronounce her name—I say, “Girl, I will talk to the bartender. You stay over here and stroke your weave.”

One note on GNO attire: You want to be sexy, not slutty. Heels = yes. Short skirt = yes. Showing a little cleavage = hell yes. But showing a little cleavage does NOT mean pulling up your cloth shirt and getting out your breast right in the middle of the club, especially if you get your breast out to feed a baby. Sacagawea has done this on more than one occasion.

5. Be Decisive
Deciding what exactly to do on a GNO can be hard. That is why I bring a coin to flip to help settle difficult decisions. I use my silver dollar rather than Sacagawea’s coin. Mostly for efficiency. It is easier to yell “heads or tails” than “face with a baby that you carry on your back like a backpack” or “you bending over to plant some corn with a baby that you carry on your back like a backpack.”

6. Be Discreet
Facebook makes GNO a little tricky, because you don’t want your parents seeing you and your girls grinding on a guy on the dance floor. They will never understand even if you tell them how handsome and sweet the guy was and that he told you you smelled like his “balls after he went to Cancún.” Facebook is not so much a problem for Sacagawea, who says her parents are not on it.

7. Stick Together (“Hos Before Bros”)
You need to have some kind of buddy system on your GNO. When Sacagawea is holding my hair back while I am vomiting into a toilet in a bathroom where someone is doing blow it often occurs to me how much hanging out with her on a GNO is a lot like listening to Frederick Douglas eloquently argue. It really is almost exactly the same, except that Sacagawea is not a black man and she doesn’t really speak English. Also, no one is arguing anything and I am just vomiting.

On your special GNO night you have to remember that you are a team. A fighting team. Like in the military. GNO is like the closest thing to war that is not, in fact, war. It is war, but with hot bartenders and super hot club remixes of your favorite songs. And just like in war you have to have your girls’ backs. Or else shit can get real. I saw this war movie called The Deer Hunter and believe me, you better take care of your girls because no one wants a GNO to end with one of you trapped in a cage, forced to play Russian roulette until you shoot yourself in the head and your brains splatter out. I mean, come on. That would really suck.

8. Have Fun!
The biggest and most important thing to remember is to have fun. It is your chance to let your hair down or, in Sacagawea’s case, let your weave down. As a woman, Girls Night Out is the most important thing you do. So do it right!