Merry New Beer!

I’ve hated Christmas since I was old enough to know why to hate Christmas (about 23, for those of you still not quite there yet). This time around, it was New Year’s Eve before I realized how little hating of the holidays I’d done.

Don’t misunderstand—I wasn’t happy about it being Christmas; I just didn’t pay attention to the same raw nerves that typically get exposed this time of year. Work has sought to absolutely destroy me over the last few months, and as a result I’ve been largely numb to all that was going on around me. [I legitimately thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown one day, but that’s for a blog I’ll inevitably write and recite as part of a group therapy session.] The obvious negatives of such a situation aside, the positive is that Christmas was blandly tolerable. One might say mildly enjoyable, even, if for no other reason than it forced my company to let me stay at home for a few days. Yay work misery!

I certainly didn’t get to relax as much at the end of December as I used to, back when I worked for a company that gave us paid holidays from Christmas Eve through New Years. But old friends being in town and a few nights where you don’t have to set the alarm clock mean booze is going to be poured. And if booze is going to be poured, well then…something, something, me waking up in weird places.


Monday, December 23rd
Once upon a time, I tried to bring rise to a new tradition called Christmas Eve Eve. It went strong for about four years before fading in ‘12. But it’s not dead yet.

Dupa, home from Houston for Christmas, gathered several of us that night for dinner at Church Brew Works. Six young professionals ate, drank, and became increasingly louder and more profane, to the point that I could feel the families seated near us cringe each time one of our voices built towards its crescendo. After dinner most of us went to our respective homes to decompress—including me. I honestly thought Christmas Eve Eve’s tradition had entered oblivion. Turns out, I just wasn’t believing in it hard enough.

TD and Canada believed, though. An hour after I had come home, I began receiving picture texts from the two of them. Awesome, drunken images of Lil Sis and various people with their eyes narrowed paper thin, chucking peace signs and grabbing breasts at Sloppy Joe’s. I’ve never been prouder of family who aren’t really family but are really family.

A week later, Canada gave all of us his postscript to that night: TD and Boy Toy dropped him off in front of his house around midnight (he’d managed to spend $80 at a dive bar where a mixed drink costs about $4, so you can go ahead and calibrate your expectations to how this ends). They watched him open his front door and walk into the crib before they left. Nevertheless, around 4 a.m. Canada awoke…lying in the bushes in front of the house.


Tuesday, December 24th
TD, Boy Toy, and TJ joined my cousin, her husband and I for dinner at my mother’s house. Bottles of wine and Heineken marched in full and rolled out empty. The guests marched in empty and rolled out full. Mom has never been one to half-ass it in the kitchen, and we feasted on a delicious home cooked ham dinner (TD ate fish) with all the fixins’. Also, a giant cake shaped like the Grinch’s head that TJ brought (it’s tradition; the last couple of years have seen cakes shaped like Santa and Rudolph).

When I got back to Shadyside that night, I stopped at William Penn Tavern to catch up with Mo-Fo and Jed. It was the first time in over two years that I’d seen Mo-Fo, who lives in North Carolina. As we caught up over draughts, a steady stream of familiar faces from around the neighborhood rolled in for drinks and holiday cheer beer. It wasn’t a night of loose women and drunken episodes, but instead a chance to catch up on each other’s tales of loose women and drunken episodes. You need those nights. When stress melts away and all that’s left is laughter and community.


Wednesday, December 25th
Christmas Day. Spiked eggnog with my mom while opening gifts. Wine with dinner. Sometimes things don’t change simply because they ain’t broke.

For those wondering (and since I’ve catalogued my alcohol-related gifts in the past): A bottle of Bulleit 10 Year Bourbon from my Lil Sis, a bottle of Glenfiddich Nadurra from my manager, an On the Rock Glass and bottle of Makers from Armo, and a bottle of Chivas Regal 12 from my mom. The quantity of booze gifts may be going down, but the rising quality is more than making up for it.


Thursday, December 26th
I fought the system by calling in sick instead of going into the office. Never mind that I legitimately needed it because I was too exhausted to function when I awoke that morning, or that I still put in about four or five hours of work from my dining room table…Viva La Revolucion!

That night T.C., Hurley, Mo-Fo, and Jed convinced me to venture over to Grove for the second half of Pitt’s bowl game. I began drinking Manhattans, and then…well, the next-to-last entry in this post happened. The most irreversibly shlammered I’d been in some time, I barely remember being at Cain’s. I do recall sitting down and ordering a beer. Then I awoke on Hurley’s couch.


Friday, December 27th
If you’ve gotta spend half of a day at work drunk, and the other half viciously hungover, I recommend doing it on a Friday when none of the executives are in the building. Thank god I have the kind of cool-as-hell manager who found my ever-deteriorating state hilarious and not wage-garnering-ous. I spent my Friday night at home, thank you very much.


Saturday, December 28th
Esq and Shock hosted the annual holiday reunion of some of our closest friends at my homie’s big, beautiful “lawyer’s house” (think it was my mom who coined that term) in the far northern suburbs of the city. Chief, Tank, Mrs. Tank (Katie), Finn, Genoa, BBB, Tony, and others gathered to drink the booze, catch up, and reminisce on the good ol’ days. All of the college stories about the girls we did or didn’t bag, the fights, the Federales, the masturbating roommates—all of it played like a classic movie marathon, one after the other.

Some in the crowd, like the ladies and the suddenly urbane Chief, drank wine. I, on the other hand, eased into the night by drinking bottles of Miller Lite. By around midnight we’d killed off two cases, and it was time for some beer pong in the three-car garage (once Esq had backed out one of the “his-and-hers” Escalades). That’s when the Beast Light came out—W&J waters run deep. By 4:30 a.m. I was passed out in one of the guest rooms.


Sunday, December 29th
I awoke the next morning to Chief passed out on the floor of the room. “I was so mad when I got up there and found out you’d beaten me to it,” he told me before we each headed home that day, “that I decided to sleep on the floor out of spite, even though I knew there were 50 open couches in this house.”


Monday, December 30th
…What am I, an animal? I laid low and stayed dry. Bitches.


Tuesday, December 31st
The main event. The Academy Awards of Drinking. The Blotto Super Bowl. I prepped like any professional does: by shoving a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal down my throat and showing up on TD and Boy Toy’s doorstep around 8 p.m. with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in my hand.

There was beer pong in the garage, of which I took part in for a while, Armo and I hardly making a dent in the night’s competition. There was lively, drunken conversation in the kitchen, of which I took a LOT of parts in. There was a game of Spades in the dining room with Joel, TJ, and Affliction, of which I cheated in (…was totally playing “Asshole” in my mind for the first hand or two). There was the ball drop, punctuated by about 10 different bottles of champagne being popped in a living room filled with 20 people and zero cups—straight chuggin’, homie.

Shannon provided my New Year’s kiss; Mo Paddle provided my New Year’s style via comically-oversized sunglasses; Lil Sis provided my New Year’s ego by pointing out that we were the only two drinking real champagne (she had her own bottle of Clicquot); and one of Boy Toy’s best friends provided my New Year’s comedy by passing out on the toilet with his pants around his ankles. And the host himself provided the New Year’s drama, getting into a fight with Under The Porch (UTP) that spilled out into the front yard, and resulted in me shoving Toy and TD back into their house and others shoving UTP into the backseat of a car headed away from the scene. (By the way…we’re all adults.) Toy found out a couple of days later that he had broken a couple of his ribs in the commotion. And, for some reason, the people who removed UTP were mad at TD the next morning for him being at their place. (…Adults.)


Wednesday, January 1st

Tradition is tradition. pic.twitter.com/bT6pc7GmDD
— The D.E.F.I. (@CS_Defi) January 1, 2014

Of the two couches in TD’s living room, I awoke on the smaller one. Of course. “Toilet Napper” had taken the larger couch the night before. But when I awoke, it was unoccupied. I moved over, stretched out, and began drifting back to sleep in the growing 8 a.m. sunshine. I soon felt someone shake my leg. It was Napper.

Him: “Ah, dude, I was sleeping there. I just got up to go to the bathroom.”
Me: “Yeah…that sucks.” *rolls over and goes back to sleep*

A couple of hours later I finally headed home, with a quick stop at Shannon’s along the way to help her with her Irish family’s tradition (a dark-haired man must come into her home and receive a shot of whiskey and one dollar at the start of each year, before she’s allowed to cross her threshold). The whiskey provided cover fire against hangover laying siege to my head, giving me the chance to retreat to the safety of my couch and five more glorious hours of slumber.

Sometimes you need a holiday from the holidays.

The Grinch is a Teetotaller

I’ve been spoiled over the last 10 years: I worked at a company where Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day was a blissful seven-business-day stretch of paid holidays. Every year I left the office on December 23rd—or sooner, depending on where the weekend fell—knowing I wouldn’t be back until January 2nd—at the earliest.

As you might imagine (or might have read, somewhere…), that kind of winter break can give a man ample opportunity to suitably numb himself up. And you would be right. Oh, so right.

I now work for the typically sterile, overly-cautious kind of corporate organization that wants employees to drive through a winter storm to be at work the day after Christmas—just because. Don’t get me wrong; there are, of cour$e, benefit$ to making that kind of tran$ition (especially when you’re not married to a beautiful European duchess—damn you, life goals!). But after 10 years of drinking single malt scotch well past 4 a.m. on Christmas night to wash away any headaches my family had caused in the prior 48 hours, drinking ginger ale and going to bed before midnight is roughly akin to that first Christmas when every gift you unwrapped was some item of clothing.

Long-winded intro short, I didn’t get to drink as much as I wanted to last month. And I have a newfound respect for the words of Joni Mitchell.

But I did drink, of course. I mean, it’s not like my failings as a human being stopped being a topic of family discussion.


Saturday, December 22nd

While I have my atheistic leanings, here’s why there’s a small part of me that believes in not only intelligent design, but intelligent design by a deity who’s a total dick: Esq, soon to move into a big new house, chose this night to be his final “Let’s all black out and fall down” night at the swanky apartment where he’s resided for the past eight years. That Saturday was also the opening night of the NFL’s Week 16, better known as championship week in fantasy football. I had managed to make it into the title game in my most cherished league. My opponent, you ask? Why, Esq, of course. And this meant that I got to hear his shit talk live and in person as Tony Gonzalez scored one solitary point for me, and got the ball rolling towards my second straight year as league runner-up. *sigh*

Fake football aside, the night was a welcomed reward after a long week of work. Chief was in town; and along with Tank, Breitling, Tony, BAL, and “The Greek”, we helped send off Esq’s once bumping bachelor pad in grand fashion. Before we had even finished pregaming, there was gambling, wrestling matches, slices of bread being scattered about the apartment and hallway as people beat each other with loaves, Esq strumming a guitar in a neighbor’s pad, and a warning from the building manager that the police had been called because of the ruckus. We had clearly devolved.

That seemed like as good a time as any to make our way to the bar, so we grabbed roadies and headed out. As we strolled out through the building’s parking lot, a police car rolled in. While the cops went inside to respond to the call, we discreetly dropped our half-full cans of beer into the bushes like eight drunken Keyser Sözes and calmly continued on across the street.

Cabs took us to Barroom, and alcohol took us over the edge. Breitling got a table in VIP, and I played Entourage for the first time in a few years. At some point several of us headed down to the dance floor, where I managed to slip and fall flat on my back while trying to pull off some dance move that I’m 15 years too old to do. I laughed my ass off, grabbed another drink and kept on partying. One of the few joys of being in your 30s: The simple fact that you don’t care anymore.


Sunday, December 23rd

…Well, until it comes time to clean up the messes you’ve made. Pre-treating the stains on my shirt that morning was delightful. And I felt like I’d damaged at least two of the three major ligaments in my left knee. My hangover was of secondary concern.

My friends and their respective hangovers, however, were not on so casual of terms. The doldrums of married life has softened some of them, and as a result their day was especially excruciating. Esq, for one, texted me updates throughout the day.

“Woke up at 1:30. What the hell happened last night?! Too old for this shit!”

“It’s 5 pm and I still feel like hot garbage.”

“8pm, still feeling terrible. How the fuck did we used to do this twice a week EVERY week?!”

By that point I was at Armo’s, putting back drinks with TJ and others. It’s so sad to see people fall off their game.


Monday, December 24th

Christmas Eve, as is tradition, saw TJ joining some of my clan for dinner and drinks at my mother’s house. Wine bottles, beer cans, ham, and weapons-grade-passive-aggressive-vitriol found their customary places at the dinner table. TJ gave me a bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet, which I’m confident will get put to good use. Maybe not quite as early as it would have in years past, but…


Tuesday, December 25th

Before the aforementioned ginger ale and self pity, the day resembled just about every other Christmas of the last 10 or so years. Late morning my mother and I had breakfast, and then opened gifts while sipping spiked eggnog. I got a bottle of something nice among my gifts (this year Jameson; there’s a running debate between that bottle and I over whether or not it’s going to live to see St. Patty’s Day). And we had a few drinks during a quiet dinner, while wistfully remembering Christmases past. Later, I briefly considered stopping by Shady Grove on my way home, before remembering…*sigh*


Wednesday, December 26th

Work, snow, and shitty roads. The City of Pittsburgh gives about the same amount of effort to clearing snow from its streets that Rolando McClain gives to self-awareness. (The answer, for those of you playing along at home, is “zero”.)


Thursday, December 27th

Dupa was back in town, and gathered several of us to join him at Fathead’s. [It occurs to me that even the most loyal and regular “On the Rocks” reader might be confused by Dupa being “back in town”, seeing as how I failed to inform you that early in December he moved to Houston, TX. Seems that would be a fairly obvious blog topic, right? One that would have been discussed at some point in the past month? What can I tell you—I suck.] I downed some He'Brew Jewbelation and doubled my body fat percentage with TD, TJ, Mitch Canada, and Dupa. Then I went home and fell into a beer-and-grease-induced coma.


Friday, December 28th

For all of my bitching about not having more days off, when Friday night rolled around I chose to stay at home (I would argue, though, that this had more to do with the exhaustion brought about by working that day; had I been home and rested, things may likely have gone differently). Instead of foraging for boobs and drinks out at the bars, I ordered food and did some home bartending while watching Goldfinger on DVD. Don’t judge me.


Saturday, December 29th

TD has recently moved in with Boy Toy in Mt. Washington, and had told us at Fatheads earlier in the week that she wanted to have some people over for a small party. Nothing too crazy, just some drinks, games, and laughter; a low key night. As I went about my Saturday afternoon, she sent a text at 1:57 p.m: “Come on over whenever!” That was followed just a few seconds later by another text reading, “[Swag] said he has Four Lokos.”

“I…but…One fifty-sev…I…”

Thankfully, my schedule (and more shitty weather) meant I didn’t get to their place until after 7:30. TD, Boy Toy, Swag, Mitch Canada, Finger Bang, and Boy Toy’s buddy “Friction” were playing Catch Phrase, wherein each round the members of the losing team had to take down Crown Royal Maple minis (there are thousands stored in TD’s place—a perk of her job). “This is healthy,” I thought. I popped open a bottle of Sam Adams Cream Stout, and was one sip in before being admonished by a slurring Bang, all because I wasn’t drinking Four Loko (mind you, the Loko can she was waving around as she talked was bigger than her face). TJ eventually joined us, and I soon had a can of Loko in my own hand. By 9:30 I couldn’t spell blotto—though I’m sure I could’ve written a 30-page blog/thesis about being it.

Canada and Bang found their way to the South Side, while TD and I walked to Redbeard’s. I don’t remember much of our time there (aside from a convo that was more familial than those that I’ve had with my actual family, and TD asking our cute waitress if she could make out with her). We stumbled back to TD’s, and at 2:30 a.m. I snapped out of a mini-blackout to find her facedown on the living room floor. Friction and I, like any good friends would do, snapped pictures of our fallen amiga like paparazzi seeing a Lindsey Lohan/Amanda Bynes head-on collision.


Sunday, December 30th

When I opened my eyes late the next morning, I was the only one in the living room. The scene was no less damning, though. As I jotted on my phone:

TD’s kitchen looks like something out of Mad Max. Half-empty bottles of Ciroc. Fully-empty airplane bottles of Captain Black and Crown Maple. Miller Lite cans. Sam Adams bottles. A frozen pizza box. A jar of pickles. Four Loko cans. Bottles of water—as though there was innocence amongst the carnage.

I gathered up myself and the bottle of Ketel One that TD had given me for Christmas, and shuffled up her snowy street. New Year’s Eve was only two nights away. But before that, unlike in years past, I had to be at work—no carousing the night of the 30th.

My head throbbed anger at itself for thinking too hard. Maybe I could get used to this more restricted way of life after all.

Say Their Names

As Americans, we have a bad habit of treating the pronunciation of foreign words like a video game villain standing between us and the next level. This can be an especially challenging setback when discussing and ordering Scotch. Esquire and legendary actor Brian Cox, however, are here to help, beginning with The Balvenie.

In all, there are 48 different brands (go to Esquire's site to see the others). You'll notice that, after about the eighth video, Mr. Cox stops sipping with every take. I'm guessing that was a self-preservation move. God knows how much longer he could have been relied to properly pronounce anything if he had kept tipping them back.

Worth Every Penny

That sound you hear? That's me smacking my lips.

From Bonhams:

An exceptionally rare bottle of The Glenlivet, distilled in 1883 and bottled in 1931 by George & John Gordon Smith, is to be auctioned by Bonhams at their whisky sale in Edinburgh on 12 October. It has a pre-sale estimate of £15,000-20,000.

The bottle has an impeccable pedigree. It was originally owned by Captain William Smith Grant, the great grandson of Colonel George Smith founder of The Glenlivet Distillery and has been in the family ever since.

Bonhams whisky specialist, Martin Green, said, "It is very rare for a whisky of this age with such an excellent provenance to come up at auction. It will still be perfectly drinkable though at several hundred pounds a dram it is perhaps more likely to remain in the bottle."

In case you don't happen to know the current exchange rate off the top of your head, that pre-sale estimate equals $24,000 - $32,000. That's about $250 per year of aging.

I think that officially makes this the cougar of scotches.

Assist by David Voth of Sex, Cigars & Booze.

Wifey Material: Hiromi Oshima

Being a refined drinker (shut up), I love nothing more than a fine glass of single malt scotch. And, as those who know me personally can attest, my love for Hiromi is deep—and well-documented. So when I saw this photo of my favorite Playmate working the Glenlivet table at the Playboy Golf Finals...well, needless to say, it just brought a tear to my eye.

Some of This + Some of That = Sum of Zero

It’s Monday afternoon, and I just took two aspirin to help quiet my hangover. This just feels…wrong.

So I was drunk on a Sunday afternoon, and it’s all Carson Palmer’s fault. His inability to throw the football to players in Bengal uniforms helped lead to a blistering defeat at the hands of BlahBlahBlah in fantasy football. And my subsequent need to erase all memory of Troy Polamalu posing like a Vegas showgirl while flying across the goal line led me to assault my new bottle of 1792. Maybe I was wrong for doing it, but let’s be real: Look at it in that picture. You can’t tell me that sexy bitch wasn’t asking for it.

Nevertheless, I awoke drooling on my couch at 12:30 a.m., instantly knowing I was going to regret everything the next morning. And when my alarm blared at me at 7 a.m., I did. What makes it all the stranger is that I didn’t drink myself Palin on either Friday or Saturday. And Friday was…eventful.

It started with the annual Christmas party thrown by my mother’s former coworkers. Once again I was her DD, and this time the venue was the Lexus Club inside the Consol Energy Center. When we reached the doors of the club, my mother—who hadn’t even had a hint of alcohol to that point—clarified to one of the CEC hostesses working the party, “I’m not a cougar; this is my son.” (For the record: No, the girl hadn’t asked.) I polished off Michelob Amber Bock draughts and an after-dinner glass of Glenlivet while listening to my mom’s friends bitch about their boss. Throughout the party I was receiving text messages from TJ and Jay Swag about how much they were drinking (I believe they started with personal pitchers of mixed drinks at 1311 Tavern). So after I finally dropped off my mother—who was feeling no pain—at her place, I went home, changed, and headed down to the South Side to catch up.

As I approached Rumshakers I found Swag; or, rather, I found a super drunk interpretation of Swag. With a fuzzy red beard (that, we later realized, makes him look like Treebeard from Lord of the Rings) and speaking 10 decibels too high on the phone while slumped in a doorway on Carson St., he was just a little brazen hubris away from being in Swag Montana mode. He was also the only member of the crew still in the South Side, as TJ had gone home and Mitch Canada had left for a house party in McKees Rocks. As I talked to Canada on the phone to get directions to the party, Swag stumbled off to another doorway, where he found a dark corner and unburdened his bladder. I chuckled as I watched a guy and a few girls walk past and one of the girls, curious about the source, began to follow the stream trickling from out of the doorway. Her shriek and fast retreat from the doorway was priceless.

After some time spent driving around the West End and McKees Rocks while Canada and others tried to give us directions, Swag and I finally arrived at the party. The first two things I noticed upon entering the house: (1.) It was a Christmas sweater party; (2.) there was a little person in a Christmas sweater on the couch. There weren’t very many people in attendance, but there was plenty of cold beer, so I was more than happy to work with it. And I was glad I had when Canada said, “You know, that midget’s my cousin. Or so I’ve been told.” And I was even more glad when a Backstreet Boys song came on the stereo and she and several others started a dance party in the living room.

When Canada introduced me to a girl of plus-sized proportions and she immediately looked at me as though I was a 6’6” 5 Guys double burger, though, I knew getting drunk was not a course of action that would end with me being in any way proud of myself. A little later, as I stood talking to one of Canada’s boys, I overheard him say to Double Burger, “I’d love for you to see my place!” The look on his face when he turned around and saw our grins proved that he clearly didn’t expect anyone else to be listening.

Alcohol is evil. Even on a Monday afternoon. I think I’ll buy some Gatorade on the way home from work.

And another bottle of 1792.

A Bitch in the Matrix

“A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix.”
—Trinity

This past Friday saw an unusual uptick in the level of bitchy behavior exhibited by female bar-goers in Shadyside. In my “vast” experience of boozing in my neighborhood, the people you meet while barhopping around The ‘Side—girls in particular—tend to be a little more laidback and friendly than those who you encounter in other areas of the city. And I really can’t offer up either a scientific explanation or a witty joke to back up this theory. It is what it is.

Early in the night I escorted my mother to the yearly Christmas party thrown by the department with whom she used to work. It has become an annual tradition for us: I’m the DD, and she’s tossing back glasses of scotch, wine, etc. It’s one of those rare moments when I’m the responsible, sober one, and she’s the can’t-stand-up-without-holding-onto-the-valet-attendants’-podium one. The comedy of watching my mother struggle to keep her balance on the perfectly-level ground floor of Lidia’s (a very nice downtown Italian restaurant) alone is worth the sacrifice of sobriety. Plus I get free drinks (limited as I was in my consumption, I did get to enjoy a glass of 18 year old Glenlivet) and a free dinner. That’s a tough deal to beat.

After dinner I dropped off my thoroughly-soused mom at her home several miles outside of Pittsburgh and then headed back to my place in town. On the way I spoke with Pakistanimal, who along with TJ was at Chappy and Toe’s house pregaming. Pak’s girlfriend had given him—as he himself put it—“a hall pass for the night,” and he was therefore eager to get his drink on. The problem, however, laid in the terms and conditions of the partying contracts that our fellow crew members were willing to sign that night. Dupa was in the South Side, and wanted all of us to meet up with him. But TJ vetoed this idea out of respect to his own girlfriend: Dupa was hanging with a jumpoff whose girl has chased after TJ since the summertime; and, now that he’s involved with a girl of sound mind and body, TJ has done his best to shake this slutty pursuer. As for Chappy, he didn’t want to come out unless Yum was going to be in attendance, which wasn’t likely to happen. Apparently the concept of “bros before ho's” is lost on the guy (not that Yum is a ho; but “sweet girl you have a kindergarten crush on” doesn’t have the same rhythmic nature to it…). By the time I got home, I was disenchanted with my friends’ antics, and decided I was staying on my couch the rest of the night. I even tried to ignore a phone call from Pak, but he quickly followed it up with a text message telling me that he and TJ were already on their way to my place. “Son of a…”

We walked to Shady Grove, but found that it was packed both downstairs and up. We tried William Penn Tavern instead, and again found a bar teeming with people. We maneuvered our way to the back patio, and luckily found a few seats at the bar. As TJ and I watched Kobe school the Heat, Pak struck up a conversation with a guy next to him. Eventually we saw them do some shots, and joked with each other about the guy putting the moves on Pak—who happens to be one of the most homophobic people we know. After the stranger walked away and Pak returned his attention to us, I asked if he was waiting two minutes before following his new friend to the parking lot to “make things look less suspicious.” In a poor attempt to wave off our jokes, Pak responded, “Nah—he’s married.” I think he realized the error in his phrasing about three seconds into the uncontrollable laughter that followed. Or maybe it was after the various texts he received from Dupa and other friends of ours to whom we told the story over the next 48 hours.

After an hour or so of drinks and shots, the three of us found ourselves at Doc’s. As we secured spots at the bar, we noticed that a coworker of Pak’s happened to be directly across the bar from us with her posse. This was the second time that night that we’d happened upon her by chance. The first time was as we walked up Walnut Street from my apartment. Lost in our own conversation, we suddenly heard someone blurt, “Is that [Pakistanimal]?” from a porch that was obscured by trees and bushes. It speaks volumes about my friends that someone can randomly hear a boisterous voice and instantly recognize one of them.

Pak ordered up three shots (as I’ve mentioned before, he orders rounds of shots almost more frequently than he orders rounds of regular drinks), but TJ emphatically declined the one offered to him because he didn’t want to get too sauced that night. I pointed it out to TJ that he was the very same person who had blatantly ignored my wishes only one week prior, when I wanted to avoid getting wrecked. That night he had responded by buying multiple rounds of shots and calling me hurtful names—similar to what Pak and I were now doing. TJ’s frustrated response: “…I-I don’t care…kiss my ASS, son!”

Little did we know it, but the estrogen level at Doc’s was boiling like magma deep inside of Mt. St. Helen’s. With an extra shot now available, Pak offered it to a small Asian girl standing next to us. She gave him a strange look and walked away. Okaaayyy… He offered it to two other girls at the bar, who each reacted as if he’d asked them to make out while he took pictures. Ironically, this helped feed Pak’s suspicions that they were, in fact, lesbians. He and I decided to split the shot, and move on with our night. Pak also had a speculative theory about the Asian girl: she probably didn’t speak English, which led to her rejecting his offer. But then ten minutes later, with “Cupid Shuffle” booming from the juke box, we spotted her amongst a small crowd of girls who were doing the line dance. And she wasn’t just dancing; she was rocking it like a little Asian J-Lo. (“A-Lo”? …nevermind.)

Pak soon decided to buy another round of three shots; this time, he had the 3rd sent to Coworker. She happily toasted with us from across the bar and then downed the gift. I noticed, however, that she had a cute redheaded friend sitting next to her at the bar. And while Coworker was surrounded by about four guys who I would have to assume are “fans” of Abercrombie & Fitch’s Facebook page, the petite redhead was sitting off to the side, seemingly unnoticed. “Look at the poor little ginger girl,” I said, calling TJ and Pak’s attention to her. “She looks so bored and lonely.”

I decided, then, that I should take it upon myself to help cheer her up. I ordered a round of Washington Apples, which are strong enough to knock you backwards but still sweet enough for girls to like them, and had the third sent to Ginger. Expecting an appreciative smile and a toast, such as Coworker had given, Pak and I lifted our glasses to her as the bartender sat the shot in front of her. But to my bewilderment, Ginger looked down at it, and with a look of disgust pushed it away while shaking her head. She didn’t so much as look over to us and say a polite, “Thanks but no thanks.” Coworker, who was obviously the fun one, swooped in like a vulture. She quickly grabbed the blocked shot [*sigh*…Puns are like the literary version of the token slut at the bar: cheap and easy, and you know should stay away…but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. And you’re always left feeling dirty about it the next day] and slammed it, and thanked me while toasting the empty glass.

The miserable attitudes of all these women, however, paled in comparison to the night’s final encounter. We stopped by Shady Grove, which by now had seen the crowd die down, to get the last few drinks of the night. When we walked up to the bar, though, we quickly found ourselves in the line of fire from a blonde girl seated to my left. As I talked with Pak, who by then had succumbed to the night’s excesses, Bitchy McBitcherson began running her mouth. I tried to politely ignore her, though Pak was incapable of doing the same. When he responded to one of her I’m-funny-because-the-losers-that-are-trying-to-have-sex-with-me-laugh-when-I-say-things insults, I advised her to “do you.” Her witty retort was, “One of you has bad breath!” I shook my head and brushed it off. As I debated with Pak over getting a drink or just leaving to get pizza—TJ, who since the argument over shots had easily become the night’s “kid brother,” wanted pizza and was on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum—Bitchy McB. spoke up again. [It’s worth noting that, while I easily remember her petulant manner and the snide style of her comments, I cannot remember most of the specific things that she said. I think this is due to my brain’s “Annoying-Bitch Blathering Filter” kicking on early and preventing most of her from intruding upon my consciousness. “ABBF”—don’t leave home without it.] After I again advised her to search for someone who cared, she looked at me and said, “It’s you. Your breath smells!” Tired of her nonsense, I inhaled deeply and then blew in her face. I then explained one last time, for clarification purposes, “I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. About it, or about YOU.” Pak, eager to come to my aid, began slurring something at her as well. Trying to return his attention to the beer/pizza decision again, I reminded him, “Please stop talking to her. Nothing she has to say matters…about anything. Focus.” I think Bitchy McB. was still talking at that point, but I had turned my back to her and turned up my ABBF so high that she no longer existed. Figuring it was a good idea to remove Pak before he Jersey Shore’d her, though, we headed off into the night, in search of food.

We never did find any food, though. I should’ve just stayed on my couch.