Drunks Say the Darndest Things 7

Do you really need the intro? Can’t we just skip the foreplay, like adults? Okay, not like, you know, adults who still care about things. I mean: like married people.

Look, you’re smart people. You know what this is all about. It’s the end of January—the truly savvy amongst you have probably been wondering how much longer they’d have to wait for this to be posted.

Each year I record the best drunken quotes—that I can remember—that my friends and I have slurred, and package up the crème de la blotto crème for the readers. And I usually throw in one or two that are from years past, that I hadn’t written about—or hadn’t remembered—before that posting. Because there’s nothing better than someone thinking the dumb shit they said is dead and buried, only to have it brought back up several years later and enjoyed by all.

• The Saturday dedicated to Swag’s birthday celebration in ’13 had gone pretty much how everyone had expected: Everyone got drunk, except for the man of honor, who got really drunk, and had to be taken home by his girlfriend before midnight. He had piled on multiple gin & tonics and shots at the bar, after multiple beers and shots while we all pregamed at his place. “Slow and steady” was not in his skill set that weekend. He was out to sprint the marathon.
  
  The next morning, the few of us who had crashed at his place sat around his living room, trying to steady ourselves. Swag leapt up from the couch and casually announced, “I’m getting a shot of Fireball.” JL, being the best friend that his hungover state would allow him to be in that moment, called out behind him, “Swag! Water is acceptable, too.”
  
  
• As I’ve stated before, the wild Raleigh weekend that I took part in last March involved five guys in very different places in their social lives. And the one married guy on hand wasn’t making his place look like a place the rest of us really wanted to be in. We were driving back to Raleigh from Chapel Hill, when Trip admitted that his fiancée’s sexual appetite was more than he could handle at times. T.C.’s jealousy boiled over. “Hey,” he cut in from the backseat, “I had to buy a pair of Uggs to get sex the last time!”
  
  
• Later that night, after we’d gotten rid of the two random chicks who tried trolling for out-of-town dick, we all settled in for the night. With five grown men and only two beds, MoFo was the odd man out, and forced to set up camp on the floor. Feeling bad for him, Hurley pulled the comforter off the bed he and Trip were splitting, and tossed it down to MoFo. When Trip protested because he didn’t want to be cold, Hurley countered with impassioned logic. “Trip, we have the sheet!”
  
  
• Christmas Eve, as has become our tradition, saw TD, Boy Toy, and TJ join my cousin, her husband, and I at my mom’s house for dinner, gifts, and lots of wine. While we warmed up with hors d'oeuvres—and lots of wine—in the kitchen, we somehow got onto the topic of pain meds. My mom mentioned that, after all of the cleaning and cooking that she’d done that day, she took a Vicodin to help with her back pain. TD couldn’t hold back her stream of consciousness. “You’re drinking wine and taking Vicodin? You’re a hardass bitch!”
  
  
• In case you were questioning my pedigree, my dear mother got hers later in the night. TD said she was too full to eat dessert, and with a twinkle in her eye Mom replied, “Yeah, ‘cause you’re a skinny little bitch.”
  
  
• Last week, Armo, TJ, one of TJ’s buddies from work, and I were at the Penguins/Blackhawks game, having a drink between periods. A stunning blonde standing at the bar quickly became the subject of our conversation, as she talked to her girlfriend and scrolled through her iPhone. When Armo offered, “She looks healthy,” I countered, “She looks…like she takes dicks to the face.”
  
  
• I missed the first night of Trip’s bachelor party, but from all accounts it was a night of drunken stupidity befitting a party thrown in Trip’s honor. At dinner that night, some of the bridegroom’s closest friends took turns standing in front of the room to tell a few stories about him and sing his praises. Then his old man stood up. “I went out one Saturday, got drunk while playing 36 holes, and then went home. Nine months later, this little bastard was born. The moral of the story: Play 54.”
  
  
• My Lil Sis, TD, has more game than an Xbox. One night, during a recent trip to New York City, she fell in lust with a cute brunette bartender. While telling me about it over text messages the next day, she reported, “I just texted her and said I have Molly in my tits to motorboat.”
  
  
• Under The Porch (UTP) and Four-Foot-D’s (FFDs) hit it off swimmingly at the Fourth of July party, and were all over each other at the end of the night. I was standing on the porch, doing keg stands with some guys, when we looked over and saw the lovebirds making out in a chair. “Haha,” one of the guys—who was one of FFDs’ friends—blurted at UTP, “You’ve got Chlamydia on your face now!”
  
  
• One night during my oft-referenced beach trip to OCMD in 2003, we watched as one girl’s bad decision-making imploded her vacation.
  
  A group of us had gone to Brass Balls Saloon for their beer pong night. After Armo and I finally got knocked off a table, we sat down at the bar and watched a pretty redhead flirt with our buddy as he played on his table. She was in her early 20s, like us, and she was pleasantly hammered. And she was making it very clear she wanted there to be further hammering.
  
  After 20 minutes or so of her shameless sloring, a guy in his mid-30s appeared in front of her. Without saying a word, he yanked her purse out of her hand, rifled through it, pulled out a room key, and then threw the purse back at her. Muttering, “Have fun,” he stormed off.
  
  Our friend and Little Red Riding Slore left the bar together. When the rest of us got back to the house we’d all rented, one of the bedroom doors was shut and familiar noises were coming from the other side. Uncle Paulie had been at another bar that night, and when he got back we filled him in on the story. Giggling like a schoolboy, he ripped his shirt off, flung open the bedroom door, and ran in announcing, “I’m here for the gangbang!”
  

[A bonus postscript: A couple of nights later, a few of us were in line for calzones at the pizza place around the corner from the house. We soon noticed a familiar face behind us in line, a few people back: Little Red Riding Slore. And she was with the older guy from Brass Balls. Seeing us, and the shit-eating grins on our faces that made it obvious we recognized them, they left the line and the pizza place without placing an order. I can only imagine the rest of their trip went just as well.]

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 Art of War

Actually, step #1 in this list should be "Graduate from Washington & Jefferson College." But the rest of these tips are cool, too. I mean, they only come from a $50,000 World Series of Beer Pong champion, and not from someone who won the rights to the nickname "The King Kong of Beer Pong." But, you know, whatevs...

The 7 secrets to dominating beer pong

Spring Cleaning

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who first said, “The more time I spend being drunk and awesome, the less time I have to write about being drunk and awesome.”

March and April were so full of shenanigans that I skipped out on writing about most of them. It tends to happen every year, since you get three significant drinking holidays—St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th, my birthday on March 29th, and the Pirates’ Home Opener in the first week of April—packed together in a three-week window on the calendar. Add in TJ’s birthday, Penguins playoff games, and Brewski Fest tying a nice bow on it all at April’s end, and you get a whole lot of “Wait, whose couch is this?” mornings. In past years, when I worked at my old job, I would’ve devoted some of my daily free time during workdays to retell the details of those events. But, with my current occupation, there is no such thing as “free time”; consequently, it’s you the viewing public who suffer. ‘Tis a cruel, cruel world, I know.

Let’s see if I can give a quick rundown of the blurry-visioned fun that has taken place through the first half of spring.


St. Patty’s Angels (Saturday, 3/16)

• Our standard squadron of drinkers assembled on Mt. Washington, with TJ, Specs, and I starting our morning at Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s house. Making a special appearance was Affliction, who quickly explained his recent M.I.A. status: He’s (reluctantly) going to be a father.
  
  Yes, he accidentally impregnated the hot, mentally-unstable Jesus freak that he had been casually bodyrockin’ for a few months. This chick is so crazy that he once caught her reading the bible aloud…to her dog. Seriously.
  
  Always wear a condom, kids.
  
  
• For weeks, Shannon had been teasing that she would have a surprise waiting for me when I arrived at her annual party. Given my various bedroom entanglements with her and her sister’s friends over the years…well, I didn’t expect good things.
  
  My god was I proven wrong. When we walked into her apartment, she pointed me towards her kitchen table, on which sat a pyramid of Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. Whether she knows it or not, we’re getting married. And we’re consummating the marriage on a mountain of those cupcakes.
  
  
• I did quick, swift damage on St. Patty’s. True, it was to myself; but…whatevs. Before I knew it I was sitting at the bar in Redbeard’s, using chicken tenders to ward off a full-on blackout.
  
  
• By the end of the night I was air-humping a passed-out-on-the-couch JL at Swag’s, while everyone else played drinking games. About seven of us passed out in that living room, and that eventually turned to eight when Tony showed up out of nowhere at 2:30 a.m. and began drunkenly groping his way through the room with a goofy smile that beamed through the darkness.
  

Meet the Parent (Friday, 3/22)

• Alex’s parents were in town for her Mom’s birthday. To celebrate, Alex took her to a local place where you can do amateur painting while sipping wine. Her dad, however, is like the rest of us normal people, and therefore chose sitting at a bar over sitting in an art studio. So Tony, TD, and I caught up with him at Shady Grove.
  
  In about 30 minutes of hang time, TD fell in love with him and I gave up Alex’s secret about the parties she threw at his house when she was a kid. This is why we shouldn’t be allowed around parents.
  
  
• We offered to buy him a shot, but he wouldn’t hear of it, saying firmly that he wasn’t up for anything crazy like us “kids”. Curious, though, he asked TD what kind of shot she would normally buy.
  
  TD: “I don’t know, probably some kind of bomb…”
  Alex’s Dad: “No, I don’t want one of those. *to me* How ‘bout you?”
  Me: “I’d probably just do a shot of Jack.”
  Alex’s Dad: “Now that sounds good.”
  Me: “Bartender!”
  
  
• The night ended with TD, Tony, and I back at my place, obliterated and suffering from drunk munchies (or “drunchies”—copyrighted). Tony found out Dominos was still open, and ordered up two pizzas. Three minutes after he hung up, TD accused him of not ordering pizza. She called Dominos herself, and was told by their staff that the order had been placed, as Tony and I laughed.
  
  That wasn’t enough confirmation for her, though. She called back several more times, to the point where the people at Dominos asked her to please stop calling them.
  

Treat Yoself! (Thursday, 3/28)

• My birthday weekend kicked off with Aziz Ansari’s “Buried Alive” tour stop in Pittsburgh. After work I caught up with Alex, TJ, and Armo at Olive or Twist, and swilled Manhattans while taking in Pittsburgh’s young professional set (shocker: I wasn’t impressed). We moved from there to the show (much love to all three of them for covering the cost of my ticket for my birthday—a truly fantastic gift), and Aziz brought the heat throughout his performance.
  
  

Birth Dazed (Friday, 3/29)

• The day’s fun started that afternoon. TD picked me up at my office building and took me to lunch at Fatheads, handing me a gift when I hopped into the car. My present? A bottle of Bulleit bourbon. Love. My. LSFAM (Little Sister From Another Mother).
  
  
• We met up with Boy Toy and Special K for beer and fantastic sandwiches. I ate until I couldn’t move, washed it down with drafts of good beer, and then ate some more. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to work half of a Friday while simultaneously fighting off a Fatheads coma and a coronary.
  
  
• That evening we gathered troops in Shadyside. TD, Special K, Special K’s husband, Tony, and Pakistanimal, all met up at my place for some pregaming, and then headed to Shady Grove for dinner and drinks. Hollywood, too, would eventually make an appearance.
  
  
• Pak, in particular, was anxious to start ordering me shots (#shocking). But even TJ—who couldn’t make it out that night—was in on the assault, ordering the modified Liquid Cocaine shot that has by now become our traditional birthday napalm. I texted him something anti-Semitic and threw it back.
  
  
• At William Penn Tavern later in the night, Tony was utterly dumbfounded to find out that the lyrics are “Highway to the Danger Zone,” and not “I went to the Danger Zone.” Yes, I’m serious. Yes, we made fun of him.
  
  
• For the second Friday in a row, it was TD, Tony, and I back at my place to the end the night. And for the second Friday in a row we ordered pizza from Dominos. But this time we kept TD’s phone away from her until the food was delivered.
  
  

Cold Open (Monday, 4/1)

• 
  This year Mother Nature played a cruel April Fools’ joke on Pittsburgh: the high for the Pirates’ Home Opener was a sweltering 47 degrees Fahrenheit, though for most of the morning and afternoon—the prime tailgating time—temps hovered in the low 30s, with frequent snow flurries. Ever get pelted in the face by snowflakes as you grip a can of Miller Lite with a shivering, numb hand, all while trying to watch a guy and five girls do some hip-hop line dance a row of cars over? Mother Nature is a devious bitch.
  
  
• LRG was on hand, along with his crew of young(ish) millionaires. Once we had all migrated indoors to McFadden’s, they quickly set up shop at the bar. And, before long, shots were being passed in every direction. I got hit by a few, and the next thing I remember with 100% certainty, I was sipping a beer on Swag’s porch.
  
  
• Somehow, someway, we found our way to Redbeard’s, where we were joined by Boy Toy, Mitch Canada, and a few of Canada’s boys for dinner and more booze. Lil Mo even made a brief appearance—just enough time for me to drunkenly yell at her for absolutely nothing. We closed the night at Cafe Nikos, and I finally called “No mas” around 2 a.m. Not bad, considering I’d started drinking at 9:45 that morning.
  
  

TJ’s Birthday (Sunday, 4/14)

• The birthday boy waited until that afternoon to decide that he wanted to have drinks at Grove; Alex and I faithfully obliged. A drunker-than-usual Lil Mo made an appearance, the Grove bartenders worked their magic, and we managed to get the homie buzzed-up on his day. It was small ball, but a win is a win.
  
  

Brews’ Clues (Saturday, 4/27)

• Brewski, oh Brewski. 20+ of us swarmed Seven Springs for this year’s event. I sipped beers during pregaming in TD’s room, pounded beers during the event, pounded beers and shots during the after party at Matterhorn, and threw the last shovelful of dirt on my coffin during the after-after party in BlahBlahBlah’s room.
  
  
• The best-kept secret of early 2013: Dupa made a surprise guest appearance at Brewski. The homie, who now lives in Houston, TX, flew into town to ensure that he, like me, extended his attendance streak to eight straight years of beer-tasting, booth-babe-teasing awesomeness.
  
  
• Among this year’s rookies was Jay Swag…who was technically one of last year’s rookies. But last year he spent the entire event sleeping off the hangover he’d incurred the night before; this, therefore, was his first time actually tasting brewskis while at Brewski Fest.
  
  
• When entering the event, you file in past security, ticket takers, etc. Nodding towards the policeman working security detail, I flashed a smirk at a female member of the event staff. “Have you guys ever had to throw someone out for being too drunk before they even got in?” Without a hint of a smile, she looked directly into my eyes and said, “Yes.” I suddenly wished I’d never said anything at all.
  
  
• 
  That night at Matterhorn, I stepped up to the back bar with T.C., and waited while a middle-aged white woman—the only bartender at that post—worked her way clockwise around towards our spot. And when my turn came a good ten minutes later…she passed me over for the guy standing to our left. T.C. and I both instinctively yelled “What the fuck?!” And in my alcohol-sodden state, I added, “That’s racist!”
  
  Was I entirely serious with the accusation? No, of course not. If anything, it was a reflex, given the humor my crew and I engage in on a daily basis. As you might expect, though, the bartender did not take kindly to my comment. Her claim that I had just then walked up to the bar, however, inspired shock from both T.C. and some of the guys standing around us. Then, when she could have saved herself by selling me booze to erase my memory of the whole situation, the bartender instead waited on a guy who had just walked up to the right of me. I walked off, calling her a “fucking racist”, and listening to T.C. telling her how full of shit she was as I went to the bar on the other side of the room.
  
  
• Once back at BBB’s for the after-after party, we decided to play beer pong. Someone had been smart enough to bring cups, but no one had been smart enough to bring pong balls. W&J boys never falter, though; BBB and I played one-on-one, using bottle caps.
  
  
• …All of that lasted one lengthy game, before the girls took over and started rounds of flip cup.
  
  
• I awoke a few hours later to my boy “Hurley” standing in the room with his new friend, a trashy blonde. Hurley, Dupa, and I were splitting the suite. But Dupa had the girl he’s dating with him, and had weaseled his way into the deckside bedroom, leaving Hurley and I to share the hallside bedroom. And since I’d gotten there first, it seemed like Hurls was all out of options for lovin’ in Room 356.
  
  He and his gal pal left. I got up to use the bathroom, and as I walked out a few minutes later, they came back. I went back to bed, and realized soon after the light went out that they were now cuddled on the other half of the bed. So I did what any reasonable friend would do: I got my phone and snapped a picture of her laying on top of him.
  
  
• Eventually, I was awakened again, this time by…certain sounds…and a moving bed. I refused to roll over to see something I couldn’t unsee.
  
  
• When I told Dupa the story the next morning—Hurley had left early to catch a flight—and showed him my photographic evidence, he expanded the picture, chortled, and shoved the phone back in my face.
  
  Dupa: “What do you see?”
  Me: “What?”
  Dupa: “Look at her hand!”
  
  There, on the second-from-the-left finger on her left hand, were a wedding band and an engagement ring.
  
  
• I realized, as I got dressed to leave that morning, that the lace from my left Timberland was missing. Gone. Nowhere to be found.
  
  This is now a cold case. R.I.P. Timb lace.
  

MDW 13

“[Jay Swag] was obliterated. [Boy Toy] only had one beer. [MoPaddle] and [“J-Cray”] were hurting. Alex’s parents are pretty cool.”

And with that, TJ summed up his Memorial Day barbecue.

I could turn this into a lecture as to why you don’t plan parties on the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend when everyone there has to be at work on Tuesday morning, but I think the lesson’s pretty clear. The very fact that he had to tell me about the party via email on Tuesday says it all. I was involved in a deep catch-up nap on my couch for much of Monday afternoon, after 60+ hours spent alternating between inebriated and hungover states.


Friday

We gathered at TD and Boy Toy’s home in Mt. Washington for the Penguins’ playoff game. TD and her crew had been drinking for most of the day, so by the time I walked through the door with two six-packs of Goose Island, drunk people were rolling back and forth between the kitchen and living room like a wave motion machine. When you add in that the day was also Alex’s birthday, you have a recipe for reckless boozing—and my crew is Gordon Ramsey when handed that recipe.

• I could barely fit my six-packs into the fridge, which was packed with Miller Lite, Miller High Life, and other various beers of low pedigree. And then Tony rolled in around the start of the second period with a case of Hoegaarden. Almost all of that beer was gone by the next morning.
• It occurred to me that Tony and I were the two most sophisticated drinkers at that party. And that is a thought I never thought I’d think.
• “Under The Porch” (UTP) christened Tyler Kennedy “Sniper Pig.” Which means nothing to you if you’re not a hockey fan, and everything to you if you are a hockey fan.
• Swag insisted on feeding people shots of Jacquin’s Blackberry Brandy. The crowd was underwhelmed.
• Alex once again proved herself to be a woman who isn’t afraid to try new things.
• Shots, shots, and more shots. Holy shit was there a lot of shots being done. And TD was the ringleader, using them as a cure-all. It’s your birthday today? Let’s do a shot! Your birthday falls sometime in 2013? Shot? Oh, you’re feeling tired? Wanna do a shot? Pens just won the series! Do a shot bitches! Feel like calling it a night? How about a shot? Everyone thinks you’re racist? A shot’ll make you feel better!
• I was only half kidding about that last one. While some of us watched a Kevin Hart clip, MoPaddle leaned over to me and whispered, “I just don’t get Black comedy!” Of course, in her hammered state, her whisper was actually a normal-decibel’d exclamation, and UTP picked up on it right away, nearly spitting out beer and stammering, “Whaaa?!?”
• In her defense, though, MoPaddle prefers the comic stylings of Kevin Nealon.
• …That wasn’t a joke.
• I passed out on an air mattress in the freezing spare bedroom next to our friend “Marty”. I can feel 100% secure in his and my heterosexuality, since we didn’t wake up snuggling for warmth.
• …Instead I used a bath towel I found in a bathroom closet.

Saturday

I awoke on an air mattress, shivering under a bath towel with a throbbing headache. A great start to any day, really.

Saturday was actually the day I’d been looking forward to all week. Alex and I had made plans to have a Shadyside night. Perfect temps, my homegirl and her sis, dozens more friends, and my home turf on the Saturday night of MDW—what could go wrong?

• …Oh yeah, hangovers from getting ridiculously wasted on Friday night, that’s what. Saturday was a 10-year war with my hangover. We each won battles, but I won the war by still making it out that night. Tony, TD, and others weren’t so lucky.
• I dragged myself to Shady Grove to meet up with Alex, her little sister (“Bedazzle”), Alex’s girl Em, and Shannon.
• …And Shan eventually checked out early. My favorite Irish lass, victimized. Friday night was a mother.
• I drank a gin & tonic, and realized it wasn’t going to fix me. Gin & Silver Edition Red Bull doubles are now a thing. You’re welcome.
• We learned that Bedazzle has a wild crew of her own in West Virginia. Including one friend who unabashedly turned an “I’m drunk and going to piss on your deck in front of you,” into an “I’m drunk and going to go ahead and follow through with a deuce. On your deck. IN. FRONT. OF. YOU.”
• …that friend was a female.
• This line from Bedazzle: “I guess some people think it’s a big deal to take a shit on a deck…”
• A sexy blonde girl with multiple visible tattoos began dancing—still seated on her barstool—when “Crank That” started playing. Yeah, I don’t know either why that sentence didn’t start, “My new bride began dancing…”
• I taught the bartender, our boy Greg, how to make a Fitzgerald. You’d think that would’ve qualified me for free drinks the rest of the night, but nnooooooo…
  

Sunday

My alarm went off at 9:30 a.m.; I chucked a pillow at it.

TD and Boy Toy picked this fine morning to move most of their belongings to their new townhouse, and several of us kindly lent a helping hand, out of the goodness of our hearts. And for beer. …And pizza.

At least the beer was Victory Hop Devil. That was just the day’s warm up activity, though—something to get the blood pumping. The second half of Sunday was earmarked for drinking faces off in the South Side on a bar crawl that would celebrate the start of Skeets’ 29th year. When I left everyone at the old Casa de T-Toy around 3:30 p.m., my immediate plans were getting cleaned up and navigating my way to my mother’s for dinner. Their immediate plans: BOOZE. (Don’t get ahead of me here…)

• I caught up with everyone at OTB in the sidewalk seating area around 9 p.m. The scene I walked into: Skeets was wobbly, but standing; TD, MoPaddle, and J-Cray were crushed; Swag was nearing Swag Montana territory, and was so invested in a conversation with some guy I’d never met before that he barely noticed my arrival; our girl “Special K”, Mitch Canada, Tony, Marty, and UTP were in varying degrees of “functional”, and were herders keeping the cattle on the ranch.
• Missing-in-action was TD’s significant other. Tony explained that Boy Toy had been playing beer pong at Belle and Finger Bang’s house, and arrived at the birthday crawl’s first stop completely shitfaced. So much so, in fact, that he had to be driven back home shortly thereafter, and threw up all over the car of the friend taking him there.
• J-Cray was so wound up that she was in full-on molester mode, smacking my ass and dancing her booty on me anytime I turned my head. I felt so cheap.
• TD was on a mission—a mission to remove panties. It’s well known that my little sister from another mother isn’t a fan of wearing skivvies, and something inspired her that night to crusade against any other woman who didn’t adhere to her religion. One-by-one she led Skeets, MoPaddle, and J-Cray to the women’s room and ordered them to remove their drawers. After Cray surrendered her panties, the little blonde pantyjacker threw the captured underwear straight into the garbage.
• Her crusade ended, however, with Special K, who fought to keep her panties on no matter how much I loudly TD protested.
• We moved on to Cupka's…with a quick stop to take pictures in front of Chinese So Relax Massage, first. Because why not?
• By now the mystery guy to whom Swag had been talking had been revealed to be Belle and Bang’s neighbor. And homie was going through some things. Tony happened to make a trip to the men’s room at the same time as “Neighbor”; while finishing up at the urinal, Tony said to him, “You know, there’s nothing quite like taking a piss when you really have to go.” Neighbor, who was at the sink washing his hands, paused in thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he replied, “…This definitely isn’t where I pictured myself being at this point in my life,” and walked out.
• This being the height of the NHL postseason, some of the guys—myself included—had been growing playoff beards. TD informed me that J-Cray and MoPaddle, wanting to participate as well, had been growing “playoff bushes.”
• Yes, I gagged a little, too.
• TD’s buddy Tom stopped by. She told him that she’d made three girls remove their underwear that night. Tom’s response: “Teach me your ways…”
• While sitting on the patio talking, I heard a crash and looked up to see Neighbor rolling on the ground next to an overturned chair. He was helped to his feet, and advised to cab it home while we walked off down Carson St. Rumor has it Bang came and got him—that has yet to be substantiated, but may very well have happened. There’s also a rumor that she took advantage of him in his physically-and-emotionally-weakened state. That also has yet to be substantiated, but is just as believable.
• When Tom went in to pay his tab, he was told that Neighbor had taken a similar tumble inside Cupkas, prior to doing so on the patio.
• We were headed towards Rumshakers, but given the distance, we stopped at Mullen's On Carson along the way. A regular seated across the bar thought I was pimping, because I had Cray, TD, MoPaddle, and Skeets all around me at the bar. I was tempted to yell back, “…And none of ‘em got drawers on, homie!”
• We finally made it to Rumshakers. Shots and beers, shots and beers, shots and beers. And dancing. Then more shots and beers.
• Our buddy Joe, a bartender at Rumshakers, took a shining to J-Cray’s drunk behind. We then killed his designs on the night when we told him she’s married.
• Swag Montana was shlammered, and it was time to say goodnight to the bad guy. Canada, Tony, and I bought six packs and got everyone into cabs.
  

Monday

For the third morning in a row…“Ouch.”

• I awoke on the floor of Canada’s bedroom, clutching a large Clifford stuffed toy that I’d used as a pillow.
• TD was still smashed. Swag slightly less so, but he wasted no time in cracking a beer from the fridge to start anew.
• The three of us, Skeets, and Canada went to DeLuca’s in the Strip District for breakfast. While we waited in a line that extended out the door of the restaurant and down the street, it quickly became apparent that having my little sis out in public was both a bad idea and incredibly entertaining. She was like a puppy sister.
• 
  It was my first time eating at DeLuca’s, but not my last. D-to-the-lish. Just typing about it is making my mouth water.
• The Pirate Parrot, without warning and completely at random, rode past on a moped, tooling down Penn Avenue.
• As we walked back to Canada’s truck after eating, we happened upon two women getting into a parked car. TD yelled “High five!” and put her hand up for the woman getting into the passenger side door. The stranger looked back at her with a shocked, nervous smile; TD reacted by yelling “Hunnnnhhhh!” and running away.
• Everyone planned to hit TJ’s party that afternoon, and Swag saw no reason to half-ass it. He asked that we drop him off at Redbeard’s. We stopped, he and TD hopped out, and we pulled off. “So,” I surmised, “They’re actually going to be worse by the time the cookout starts?”
• I got back to my car, got back home, grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, hit my couch, and slept through the cookout.
  

For the first time all weekend, I woke up without a hangover. And yet, I still felt like a champion. Who knew it was possible?

What I Learned This Summer (2012)

[Note: Shut up. Yes, this should have been posted last fall. I started writing it in September. Then I put it aside for the Tampa write. Then I put both of them aside to deal with the hectic November and December I had as I switched jobs. Let’s be realists here; me being me, getting this posted anytime before halfway through the summer of 2013 is (sadly) rather impressive.]

This wasn’t my first rodeo.

When you’re a kid, summer lasts forever. Everything does, to one extent or another. But summer—cool blasts from vents in dashboards, cannonballs into glistening pools, rhythmic murmuring of crickets, sundresses fluttering in a warm breeze, beads of sweat on your forehead—is inherently visceral. Your five senses are forced to compete for control over every second of every bright, humid, bikini-clad minute.

The sad part, though, is that once you’re an adult, responsibility jumps into the fray. When you focus on your taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing, everything slows down. The world is broken down piece by piece, and your attention dances from one sensory impulse to the other. But responsibility? That bitch nags you about every little unfun detail of your life. Bills, interviews, cleaning, repairs, performance reviews, healthcare… And when you focus on those things, life starts blowing past at warp speed.

The only solace I take from responsibility’s involvement in my adult life: It makes booze that much sweeter. (And easier to afford.)

So the fact that the Summer of 2012 came and went faster than a Mitt Romney political stance didn’t surprise me. I knew it was going to happen. Just like I knew that I would do another one of these “What I Learned” posts (and maybe get it posted before December this time). [Update: Shut up.] I tried to take mental notes of every barbecue and cannonball—because, as I've proven before, taking actual notes isn't really a strength of mine—along the way, so that I could share it in this inevitable post.

As always, these are in no specific order, and no one instance holds more significance than the other. They’re all equal parts of the brief, beautiful moment that was the Summer of 2012. Salud.

• It’s more fun when it’s forbidden. Prince of Ligonier and Mrs. Prince decided to have a house party in late June. A decent number of guests kicked it throughout the day, but by midnight only three of us remained, playing beer pong and cracking wise with our two hosts in the garage of their townhouse. I don’t know who it was that suggested we go swimming, but I know his or her idea was met by two immediate roadblocks: (1.) The swimming pool in Prince’s housing plan closes around 9 pm; and (2.) Those of us who didn’t live there did not have access to swimwear. I don’t know who solved these two roadblocks, but I know that he or she used the same answer for both: “Fuck it!” Before long, five drunken 30-year-olds were splashing around in the community pool, some in their underwear.

• If it worked once, it’ll work twice. In the summer of 2011, I convinced Armo to take his day of hanging with a friend from out of town and turn it into a big pool party. The result was one of the best days of the year, with tons of booze, boobs, sunshine, bikinis, and shenanigans. And TJ KO’d by Lemonade Vodka. So, of course, I did it again in 2012.
  
  Armo had planned to host a quiet night with some old friends one Saturday in July, but I suggested he make it more of a “Pour-champagne-on-a-ho” party. He reluctantly relented, though no one got Mother Nature’s go-ahead (leave it to Western PA to have a 60-degree day in mid-July). Despite the unseasonably cool weather, we gathered a respectable crowd (Alex, Shannon, her date Brad, Hurley, TJ, “Special Friend” and her girlfriend, in addition to the seven or so friends Armo had originally planned for). We all stayed away from the pool (aside from TJ, who dove in expecting others to follow, then had to shiver in a towel by himself), and had a blast kicking it on the deck with lots of food, lots of drink, and lots of hilarious conversation well into the night.
  

• Women wingman harder than men do. Armo was a marked man that night. I was preoccupied with my own bedtime maneuvers, so I was oblivious to my friends’ shenanigans; but, to my shock, Alex was sitting on the living room couch with a big grin as Special Friend and I emerged from the guest room the next morning. When I gave her a lift home, Alex revealed that Shannon had helped her scheme on Armo in his own home. Their mission had involved covert meetings between the two DGs throughout the night, as they strategized Alex’s way into Armo’s bed.

• People tend to overestimate their inner circle’s coolness. In saying this, I may sound hypocritical or delusional to any reader out there who hasn’t met my friends. But I challenge any doubter to spend a night around our crazy cast of characters and come away from it thinking me to have misrepresented them. On the other hand, there were a few occasions this summer when I spent a night as the guest amongst a large group of people who think they are the newest Rat Pack, and went home thoroughly unimpressed. I’m not saying my crew is the most entertaining (besides, we’re probably more “Brat Pack”), just that we hold up our end of the bargain.

• If you’re in a pool and you’re not playing beer pong, you’re doing it wrong. I arrived at Dupa’s 4th of July party with a little surprise: a red, white, & blue inflatable beer pong table. Without question, it was the best $40 I spent all summer. When our crew hit his apartment building’s pool and set everything up, we were instantly the day’s winners. All of his neighbors and their guests loved it, and started signing up to play. Even the lifeguard on duty was impressed, and chatted with us while watching our pong matches as the party thumped on into the night.

• Sexual tension is contagious. One Friday in June, TD had once again agreed to help me clean my place. This time, however, instead of paying with vodka, I offered to buy her dinner. And since that meant we were going to be hanging out in Shadyside, we decided to bring some friends in on it. Strangely, most of those friends were women—not that I was complaining. Bring It On (BIO), Tony, Alex, and Lotus joined us at Harris Grill for dinner, drinks, and political dialogue slurred words. After dinner we moved a few doors down to the Shadyside Saloon, and continued to wax poetic until close.
  
  At that point, we bought some six packs and (minus Lotus) retired to my apartment. BIO’s and my flirtations had been building for a few months, and when I walked her to her car, we were soon making out in the middle of the street like two clumsy teenagers. As I walked back into my apartment building and texted TD (who by then had headed home), an amusing thought popped into my head: What if Tony and Alex, left alone in my place, had started going at it? Chuckling at the random thought, I opened my apartment door...and was met by Alex’s pink-panty-clad-booty arched up in the air above the couch—and Tony. I lol’d as I walked past them and straight back to my bedroom to pass out.

• Also contagious: blue balls. I, of course, was disappointed that my night had ended with a makeout session instead of, “Let me get you a towel.” But I felt a little better the next day when Alex informed me that she had not given Tony any more release than BIO had given me. In fact, he had it worse. Embarrassed by me catching them, Alex decided to head home immediately—and made Tony drive her there. Not only that, she made him stay the night and cuddle, but refused to have sex.

• A friend with bourbon is a friend indeed. Armo was a tad inexperienced when it came to drinking bourbon. Understandably, he sought tutelage from the foremost expert he knows—me. Always one to help out a friend, I agreed to split a bottle of Woodford Reserve one Saturday in August. We tested recipes while watching flicks and growing progressively dysfunctional.

• If you’re going to have a hangover, there’s no better place to be than Armo’s. The next morning—as is the case on any morning when I’ve awoken at Armo’s house with the Ghost of Bottles Drank rattling chains in my head—when I stumbled out of the guest room, I was handed a cup of coffee and a bottle of water. I was then offered breakfast, refuge on his couch…and science. As the damage we’d done to ourselves with bourbon was slowly repaired, we distracted our aching brains with several episodes of Mythbusters (hi Kari).

• Country music concerts are great—so long as you don’t go to the concert. In June Dupa, Swag, and I toured the sweaty cowboy hat bacchanalia that is the Kenny Chesney concert tailgate in Pittsburgh. And I think I can speak for all of us when I say it exceeded our (admittedly low) expectations. Next year, we’ve got to find a way onto one of the boats docked along the shore. “Large half-Black man on yacht at country music concert” is a box on my bucket list that’s just dying to be checked off.

• There are some hot women in Pittsburgh. A trip to Tennessee in 2011 made me fully appreciate Shadyside’s spectrum of beautiful faces, but it wasn’t until my friend Connie’s birthday last June that I realized Pittsburgh, as a whole, is home to a fair percentage of gorgeous ladies. I just haven’t been privy to their secretive meetings. [If you’ve seen the Seinfeld episode that explains this phenomenon, then you feel me. Sadly for the rest of you, my YouTube searches for this clip have come up empty.]

• Water is an acceptable choice at 3 a.m. I left Connie’s party fairly early, but went directly from there to a party at Shannon’s—with a quick stop at a six pack shack along the way. Operating on a significant caipirinha buzz, I walked into her Mt. Washington apartment to find almost everyone there in worse shape than I was. When in Rome… I was soon crushed, and by 3 a.m. I’d polished off the beers I had brought—and any other beer that had previously existed within the confines of Shannon’s apartment. Sounds like the perfect time to start drinking Jack, right? Ugh… When I awoke the next morning (at 7 a.m., no less), Hell sounded relaxing. I swore off all booze forever. “Forever”, in this case, meaning “until that night”.

• Water is never really an acceptable choice when you party with Irish chicks. Shannon, like several of my friends, finally made it into the “Grown Ass Man/Woman Club” in 2012. Although her birthday is actually in June, she planned her day of celebration for early July. The day was broken down into three segments, each of which was saturated with booze.
  
  It started early in the afternoon with the birthday girl, her sister (Dr. Kelly), Dupa, and I drinking heavily while beating the mid-90s heat in Dupa’s pool. We even inflated the beer pong table and ran a few games. The second act was dinner down the street from Dupa’s at the Grandview Saloon, where about twenty more friends joined us to enjoy good food and good drink, and to toast to our favorite tiny Irish lass. The grand finale came in Station Square, where we all partied at Buckhead and continued to drink ourselves ridiculous. There was even a small encore, in which Shannon, Special Friend, our boy Wu, and I all hit Redbeard’s before close to put a cap on the night.

• If you’re going to add beer pong to a marathon drinking day, then you’d better win. Shannon and Dr. Kelly left Dupa’s pool late in the afternoon so they could start getting ready for the dinner party. Dupa and I, however, chose to play one-on-one beer pong instead. And unfortunately for Dupa, I’m better than him. By the time he and I made it over to the Grandview Saloon, he was a slurring mess. He was “Dupa Drunk”, which burns bright, but isn’t sustainable. He seemed to be sobering up somewhat by the end of dinner; when we all moved to Station Square, though, he was nowhere to be found. The next day he told me he had snuck off after paying for dinner, walked straight back to his apartment, and gone to bed.

• What’s wrong with six? Everything.

• Anthrocon is the true Magic Kingdom. The 2012 Furry Safari…wow. I would’ve loved to have put together a full post like in 2011, but I—of course—didn’t get around to it. I spent most of that day partying at Tonic, as per usual, and was joined by Chappy, TJ, TD, Boy Toy, Shannon, Armo, Wall Street, Dupa, Entertainer, Jay Swag, Alex, BIO, and more over the course of the day. BIO and Wall Street were rookies, and while observing them, I reached a realization: Watching a first-time safari participant is (I’m guessing) like taking your kids to Disney World to see Mickey for the first time. The giddiness and glee that they exude throughout the day just warms your heart like (I’m guessing) a proud parent. The countless hours of booze helps with the warming, of course…

• There’s a slutmuffin in all of us. Alex had an eventful summer (as you’ve probably noticed). Dupa jokingly called her “slutmuffin” on Twitter one day, and somehow the endearing pet name stuck. When she suggested in August that she and I start a special subgroup/“club” (strictly for the purpose of getting indignantly drunk at happy hours and feeling special), our discussion on the club name quickly landed on “Slutmuffins”. It then bounced to “Pretty Little Liars”, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”, and then back to Slutmuffins. We may have trouble agreeing on a club name, but you can’t argue that our theme hasn’t been consistent.

• We Dirty Pretty Slutmuffin Liars are some Rotten Little Scoundrels. The initial five club members were Alex (co-president), TJ, TD, Swag, and me (co-president). For our first happy hour, we chose to meet at Finn McCool’s after work on August 30th. Although he had initially agreed to the terms, Swag balked at the last minute. Since TD had brought along Boy Toy (some people just don’t understand that membership in a fake club is a privilege), he was given Swag’s spot. Knowing this wouldn’t be the most effective way to exact revenge for Swag’s treason, though, we decided to take things one step further. After a couple of drinks each, we moved our meeting down the street to our pale friend’s self-described “Mecca”: Rumshakers. Once there, we took pictures of the bar and ourselves, and then flooded Facebook, Twitter, and his text message inbox with them. Suddenly Swag was fervently requesting us to come pick him up (he still didn’t have his license). We laughed, ignored him, and returned to toasting to our club’s success.

• I need tinted windows. On my way to Finn McCool’s that night, I pulled up to a red light on Carson St. As I came to a stop, in my peripheral I noticed a woman who was waiting for me to pass so she could continue crossing the street. When I glanced over…it was The Ex. I spun my head forward, gripped the steering wheel, and prayed I didn’t hear a knock at my window.

• TD is my LSFAM (Little Sister From Another Mother). When I walked into Finn McCool’s that night, she took one look at my face and said, “Uh oh.” She then bought me a shot of tequila to help numb my short-term memory.

• Our crew is only growing bigger. Steph gave birth to a beautiful baby boy—Maximo—in July. His pimp cup is locked in a case with a sign reading, “In case of 18th birthday (or twins), break glass.” Chappy got married in September, thus laying to waste all of our bets that he’d screw it up with a woman waaayyy out of his league before she was on record as saying, “I do.” Dr. Kelly got married in October; her wedding was a fantastic weekend of drinking, reminiscing, and partying (the only reason I didn’t cover it in this post is because it wasn’t technically in the summer). BBB and his wife welcomed their third child into the world in June; I can’t wait ‘til I get to sit in his luxury box in whatever NFL stadium his sons play in.

That day’ll be here before we know it. Hopefully, we’ll occasionally get to stop and enjoy the summers we pass along the way.

A New Day

For the first time in seven years, I’m having a few drinks on New Year’s Day. That may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing. Right now I’m just going to go with “good thing”.

I certainly didn’t slack off last night. For those people who pursue kids and homeownership as a means to giving their lives purpose, Christmas is probably the main event of the holiday season. It certainly was when I was a kid. New Year’s Eve was just the closing bell of the weeklong vacation from school.

Then, when I got a little older, I realized that I didn’t really care about getting gifts. And I discovered NYE parties.

I’ve been a part of some legendary NYE parties. Some highlights:

• One year BBB’s aunt and uncle let him and his cousins throw a party at their Seven Springs condo. Having packed 20+ people and three kegs into the lavish condo on a snowy December 31st, we welcomed 2002 by me blindly walking a few miles through the wilderness to get back to the cabin after a latenight voyage to another party, and several people in our crew watching two party guests have sex on a hallway floor when they thought everyone was asleep.

• A few years later we managed to put together another Seven Springs NYE, though not at a swanky condo. T.C. found a big cabin available for rent, and on the first night I counted 30+ people in attendance. We ran simultaneous games of beer pong and flip cup (on the same table), deep fried turkeys, and chilled in the hot tub. At the end of the night BBB unwittingly cockblocked me in said hot tub; then his little brother, Affliction, wittingly cockblocked me with the same girl inside, as she and I tried to get things going on an air mattress in the living room, when we thought everyone was asleep.
• The following year our friend Cara hosted a party at her apartment in Squirrel Hill. I know there were games of flip cup. I also know that I made out with an Asian girl whose name I never caught. I threw up in the bathroom and passed out not long after midnight. K-Man made out with the same Asian girl, then threw up outside in the bushes. I woke up the next morning while trying to fit all 6’6” of myself onto an ottoman. Cara said that at one point late in the night, all seven of the guests still at the party were either throwing up or passed out.
• Some NYE exploits have already been published, so I’ll just give you a link and spare the recap.

To ring in 2013, Jay Swag decided to throw a blowout at his and Mitch Canada’s home. I braved Mt. Washington streets in a snowstorm with rear wheel drive; when I had arrived and parked safely, I took it as a sign from above that I was supposed to get ridiculously shitfaced that night. I found Swag, Canada, TD, Boy Toy, Belle (who was hammered off her first three beers, after a week of inactivity due to illness), and others inside, racing towards that very same end. We were eventually joined by TJ, Finger Bang, Tony, Shannon, and many more of our fellow lushes—quite the assembly of masters of the alcoholic arts.

I started the night drinking Sam Adams Cream Stout and Sam Adams White Christmas. Once those were polished off, I moved on to cups of Miller Lite from the keg as TD and I repeatedly got mopped off the beer pong table. Throughout the night shots of Crown Royal Maple were passed around. At midnight I popped a bottle of Taittinger brut, and by 12:20 it was gone. I’m not quite sure what I drank the rest of the night, but the Belle & TD dance party that I found immortalized in photo and video on my phone suggests there was no stoppage to anyone’s consumption. I awoke on a couch this morning with a blanket over only half of me, and Tony snoring from a nearby recliner.

Before heading home, I helped Shannon with a family tradition. I stopped by her apartment, and in doing so ensured that she had a dark-haired man walk through her door on New Year’s Day; she then gave me a shot of whiskey and a dollar. God bless those crazy Irish.

2013 is looking like it’ll be a strange, wild ride. Salud.