The Sunshine State [Day 2]

Friday, May 26

I awoke in a panic, as I wandered from room to room in the dark, looking for a bathroom. I opened a door and found a closet. Behind another door and I found Dupa snoring in his bed. After what felt like hours, I realized I was in our condo. In Florida. And I was really, really hungover.

Lucidity was slowly reacquainting itself with me. I was missing my left sock. A wad of ones sat on my dresser. I vaguely remembered vomiting in a parking lot. I made a mental note to check my shoes and shorts later for collateral damage. [Note: Not a spot on them! It’s almost as if I’ve done this before.]

I felt a tinge of embarrassment. Any guy does when he’s thrown up in front of his buddies. When you’re that guy, you feel like you’ve let everyone down. I found the bathroom, flipped up the seat, and as I pissed I realized that there were flecks of something all around the bowl.

“Dupa hurled, too.” Then my struggling brain fully processed this information. “I’m not the only one.” A sizeable grin spread across my face as I washed my hands and hobbled back to bed.

A couple of hours later, I was still the only one in the condo awake. I’d showered and shaved before Dupa shuffled into the living room, plopped down in the leather armchair, and joined me in watching tv.

Me: “Did you vomit last night?”
Dupa: “I’ll clean it up.”
Me: “I did too, in the parking lot outside the strip club.”
Dupa: “Ha! I didn’t even make it inside. As soon as I got out of the Uber I ordered one of my own.”

The same driver who had dropped us off had taken the request, and swung back around to pick him up. Then he had to talk to Dupa the whole way to the condo to keep my Polish comrade from throwing up right there in the car.

We’re both adults, by the way.

Ton had texted me around 9 a.m. to ask if we wanted to go fishing with the rest of the boys. It took me until 12:30 to respond, but I’d wager he knew my answer well before that. It hardly mattered anyways, since their fishing boat encountered engine trouble shortly into the trip, and they had to head back for land. A Snapchat video of Ton, TK, Balls, and Tiger Blood smiling and partying as the boat charged out into the Gulf was immediately followed by a subdued one of them puttering back shortly thereafter.

About an hour later Dupa and I were meeting up with the guys at Bubba Gump’s. Just being out in the sunshine on a deck overlooking the bay was doing wonders for me. I couldn’t say the same for TK, who sat opposite me at the table, looking shell-shocked. Our waitress, upon first seating him, had unabashedly commented, “You look terrible.” It was an astute observation.

Hemsworth, for the record, hadn’t even made it out of his hotel bed. When Ton texted him about lunch, his full response was, “No.”

Catching up on how everyone else’s night had ended was a therapy session in and of itself.

• TK gave the full account of making it rain:
  
  Tiger Blood handed him $100 in ones and they walked over to the edge of a stage. He then told the dancer to spin on the pole.
  
  Dancer: “No.”
  Tiger Blood: “I’m paying you money. Get on the pole so we can make it rain on you.”
  Dancer: “No.”
  Tiger Blood: *to TK* “Fuck this bitch, we’re not giving her shit. We’ll spend our money on the next dancer. *a moment passes* Fuck it. *tosses dollars in the air and walks away*”
  
  
• Ton, meanwhile, had a different kind of difficulty with a woman.
  
  Me: “Did I imagine it, or was Mrs. Ton there?”
  Ton: “She was there. I didn’t want her to come out, because I knew we’d end up getting into a fight. And I was right.”
  
  
• Tiger Blood called an escort service when he got back to his hotel room. But he got tired of trying to negotiate a reasonable price, so he gave up on it and went to bed.
  
  

We inhaled tall drinks, fried seafood platters, sandwiches, and burgers. Dupa and I had arrived later, and our food orders were about 10 minutes behind everyone else’s. I claimed Ton’s burger for myself as it was delivered to the table, without a second thought or a shred of a fuck given. Bachelor party hangovers are an every-man-for-himself blood sport.

After lunch Tiger Blood and I were talking to a cashier and the manager. When we told them that we’d been out for our friend’s bachelor party the prior night, the manager said, “Ah, so you guys went hard last night.” Then, pointing at me, she added, “I can tell.”

Still, we were the only two interested in doing a bit more day drinking, and we walked to Hooters for a beer […and maybe in futile hopes of running into Svana again]. The groom, Ton, and Balls left to prepare for the rehearsal dinner. Dupa went back to the condo to sleep more.

He awoke a couple of hours later, ambling out to the living room to find me watching River Monsters. Our friend Shafe arrived in town and had immediately begun texting Dupa, who told him we’d meet him at the bar in 30 minutes. Two hours later we strolled into The Hut Bar and Grill, and found Shafe pounding Bud Heavies with a chip on his shoulder.

The Hut was my kind of place. Right on the water, live music, an engaging bartender, and hard-hitting Hurricanes. I put back four with dinner, while Dupa did five and a LandShark, and Shafe drained Bud bottles like an ancient Aztec priest performing sacrifices on the steps of a temple. In other words, things were just like you’d expect them to be.

When the rehearsal dinner ended, the participants headed for Daiquiri Shak and instructed us to do the same. When we got there, we found them to have largely taken over the deck in front of the building. We grabbed seats at a nearby table, ordered ourselves beers, and jumped right into the flow. And I got some face time with my favorite University of Alabama alum (sorry Amari, you’ll have to settle for second).

Tide was tipsy, and had the look of a woman both relieved everything was finally happening and stressed that it wasn’t all over yet. Still, relief seemed to be her dominating emotion, as she kicked back with some beers and entertained us. Inevitably, she delivered the quote of the night.

Tide: “I told my mom, ‘I can’t wait to finally have sex!’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Oh shut up.’ I have a past life; I used to be a bit of a hoe…”

A random local from a table near ours made her presence known. Blonde, 40+, and wearing her standard-issue Florida jorts, she jumped up and did her best embarrassing-aunt-at-the-family-picnic dance. Not the least bit apologetic, she explained to us, “It’s Friday. You’ve gotta let loose!”

My immediate reaction was, “She’s the female version of Dupa.” I can’t honestly remember if I was the first one of us to say it, though, because Mrs. Ton and Tide both made the same observation. We may have all said it simultaneously. Dupa saw it too. He stared in awe, occasionally putting the corner of his phone in his mouth for lack of a verbal reaction. I know the man well, and those are the telltale signs of him being flummoxed.

Our group was soon joined by four of the girls from the bachelorette party we’d met at CJ’s the night prior. Balls had made a connection with one of the bridesmaids, and invited her and her friends to come hang. It occurred to me for the first time that they were all blonde. And hot. And, as often happens when you have four beautiful young blondes at your table, we suddenly had a douchey pest hovering around us.

Looking like the least popular member of a boy band [“JC Nahsez?” “FuckBoy?” Yeah, let’s go with FuckBoy.], he interjected himself into our consciousness by making an unsolicited response to one of our comments. As we paused to ask ourselves “Who the fuck is this guy?” he zeroed in on the blondes, grabbing a chair and pulling it over close to two of them.

We shrugged off the intrusion, figuring he was the girls’ burden to bear. But when he disappeared for a moment, we asked them what his deal was. “I don’t know,” one of them said. “He’s annoying.” When he came back around, the ladies gave him a cold shoulder. He tried to save face by buddying up to my boy Billy, who in turn told him, “You should probably just walk away.” FuckBoy reluctantly accepted his fate, and extended his hand in my direction, looking for a handshake. I just stared at him.

FuckBoy: “You’re not going to shake my hand?”
Me: “Nah.”

I think he yelled “fuck you” or something as he walked away, I don’t know. He didn’t matter.

We resumed our various conversations and drinking. With the next day being a big one, though, most of us started clearing out around 1 a.m. I was one of them, strolling off down the street—our condo was only a block away. And I hummed a tune as I did.

After all, it was Friday. You’ve gotta let loose.

Relationship Goals (Part 1)

I've got friends who love sex. I've got friends who will tell you how much they love sex, and how desperate they are to have sex. Immediately. In that very moment. Like someone, anyone, please swipe all of the bottles off the top of this bar and have sex with me on it.

...And those friends are women.

The female libido is a dangerous, ravenous wild animal. So I understand Kimberly Jackson, and her struggle. From Playboy:

It was just your average day in a Norfolk, Virginia strip mall parking lot before some woman mounted an unconscious man and began having sex with him in public.

The woman at the center of it all is 36-year-old Kimberly Jackson, who was caught on camera mid-romp with her boyfriend as he lay on the ground passed out. When Jackson spoke to a reporter, she explained that this all happened because she was “drunk and horny.”

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.]

Forget Me Not

All I'm going to say is...I recognize these women. I see them every time at the bar. Sometimes they're in my own crew.

That's all I'm saying.

Wifey Material: ...

...whoever this angel may be. Let's consider all of the qualities she's displayed for us:

• She's sexy (I mean, call me shallow. But...that's the first thing guys see.)
• She's faithful. (Who did she have sex with in this ad? No one, right?)
• She got shit taken care of for her man. (All you want, as a guy, is a woman who will take care of any detail and/or home-related duty that you don't. And, in this case, the man left his woman with the task of cleaning on this particular day. And she found a way to accomplish that without actually having to work hard. Call me crazy, but that sounds like innovation to me.)

I'm so in love. In my heart, I want a woman who will be out there climbing corporate ladders just like me. But...I won't lie; there's something sooooo sexy about her "Everything is resolved, I took care of your home while you were gone" demeanor. It's submissive, sure. But...yeah.

Social Drinking Excellence: Luis Briones

Mr. Briones is like the New Mexican version of James Bond—after all those shaken martinis started to kick in.

From the ABQ Journal:

Luis Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night, hiding in a cactus, after he crashed his Ford Explorer in the 2600 block of Pennsylvania NE on Monday night.

Briones’ female passenger was found naked outside the vehicle after being ejected. She had deep cuts to her face and head, but was in stable condition when she was sent to the hospital, police said.

Police said Briones was heading north on Pennsylvania when he ran a red light and struck a car heading westbound on Menaul NE.

“Mr. Briones was observed to be having sexual intercourse with the passenger and sped off… at a high rate of speed,” the Albuquerque police officer wrote in a criminal complaint. “Their activities presented a danger to others in the roadway as exhibited by the accident.”

Witnesses told police Briones was clearly drunk when he got out of his car, and officers found a partially full bottle of vodka in the vehicle.

When Briones tried to drive away from the scene, leaving his passenger behind, a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition.

That’s when Briones tried to take cover in a cactus, where he later refused police demands and became hostile with paramedics and others, police said.

Well hello there, Luis.

1. ...What's she look like?
2. No, seriously...what does she look like? I feel like this is pertinent information. I mean, sure—on the surface—having road sex while hammered sounds stupid; but what if she was like really, really, good looking and stuff?
3. How many angry emails am I going to get because someone doesn't understand sarcasm? But I digress...
4. It must not've been that good, if he was willing to leave her behind.
5. Of course, the fact that she had just flown through a windshield probably tells us all we need to know about the compassion of one Mr. Luis Briones.
6. Luis Briones don't give a fuck!
7. ...except for when he's, you know, giving a fuck while drunk driving.

8. Does knowing she's not seriously hurt make it okay to laugh at the mental image of a naked person flying through a windshield? I mean, in a cartoon sense. Like, if you saw Elmer Fudd butt-ass naked, come bursting out of a window?
9. We'll really know the strength of Luis' game if this chick pays him a few conjugal visits.
10. Don't worry, I haven't ignored the whole "hiding behind a cactus" part. I just feel like that's not as shocking as it probably seems to people who don't live in New Mexico. I mean, I picture hiding behind cacti to be a New Mexican children's game. "Hide-&-Go-Cactus".

Your Rummy's in the mail, Mr. Briones. It's coming with a breathalyzer for you to attach to your zipper.

TJ with the assist.

FKi -- "Hello"

Straight turnt up. I'm kind of mad this puppet lives a better life than I do.

The Worst: The Program

[This series of stories explores some of my more embarrassing achievements in the category of "drunken fail". And in every fail in life, there's an ounce of naivety, a pinch of redemption, and a bucket of lessons learned.]

When you’re a senior in high school, you think you’re prepared for everything. It’s not that you think you know everything—you’re overly aware that you don’t know everything. From the first bell of the school year on, you’re sliding towards a cliff called “graduation”. And over that precipice is college: a swirling sea of teachers who know what they’re talking about, classmates who know the answers, and girls who know what orgasms are. But regardless of all that you know you don’t know, you know you’re prepared to jump headfirst into that new, unknown world.

One thing I didn't know was booze. (Yeah…let that one sink in for a moment.) I really wasn’t much of a drinker in high school…in that I didn't drink anything. Ever. Sure, I had the occasional half a beer that an older cousin slipped to me at a family reunion, cup of champagne on New Year’s Eve, or few ounces of crème de menthe to sip when Mom was having a nightcap and feeling lenient. But hanging out in the woods pounding cheap beers bought with a fake ID? That wasn’t me.

Then, in the winter of my senior year, college coaches began taking an interest in seeing me line up for their defenses, and thus started inviting me to spend time on their campuses. When a recruit visits a college, he's assigned a host—a member of the team who acts as a guide through this amazing world of liberties. And a host has one job: Make sure the recruit has as much fun as he can have without dying.

Now, if you’re a blue chip prospect being recruited by a D-I school, there are seemingly endless options available for what the word “fun” can mean. But the schools interested in me were D-II at best. The quality and amount of amenities drops significantly with each “I” you add after that dash.

One Saturday morning that January, my mom dropped me off at Washington & Jefferson College. W&J was D-III; by the time you get down to the third “I”, the only real indulgence available in attractive, abundant quantities is booze. Today, that sounds like heaven. 16 years ago, it sounded like trouble.

My host was “Varsity”. Varsity had been the starting quarterback for my high school’s team when I was a freshman. Of course, back in those days we had been a run-heavy offense; in college, therefore, Varsity was a punter. I tried to bust his balls about this while we caught up, but he pointed out that he spent all practice kicking and rarely running, spent games not getting hit, and then spent Saturday nights celebrating wins at the same parties as the rest of the team and—this being D-III—boning girls of the same quality that any other starter was boning. I had nothing in response, and silently vowed to follow his every word like gospel from there on out.

After meetings with coaches and watching part of a wrestling match in the gym, we headed back to Varsity’s dorm room. He was in a fraternity—the prototypical “football frat” on campus. The sound of loud music and the smell of stale beer greeted you from the muddy hallways, as guys still reeking of the previous night’s parties and sexual conquests moved from room to room. Varsity’s roommate was the team’s starting center, a 6’2” block of muscles. “Block” was twice the size of the kids I’d tossed around in high school games, a big ol’ country boy with a dip in his mouth, a hungover grin on his face, and a handshake that almost dislocated my shoulder. Yeah, college was going to be different.

Being a strapping young lad of nearly 18 years, the most prominent thought on my mind in every second of every minute was girls. Varsity, his frat brothers, and other members of the football team all painted the picture of drunk, immoral slores who treated parties like the dick aisle in a supermarket. The abundance of willing females, it seems, was never in question at W&J.

…No, what was in short supply, was physical beauty. In a school of only 1300 students, there were only so many hot girls to go around, and the odds of bedding one were in no man’s favor. And so, when it came to drunken hookups, lowered expectations were the name of the game.

I was learning so much, and this was only my recruiting trip.

To illustrate this concept, at dinner they pointed out “Hulkamania” from across the cafeteria. [Note: This was really one of her nicknames, but it wasn’t actually born until the following September, when one of my friends—a fellow freshman on the team—hooked up with her. During their encounter, she ripped open her own tank top, reminiscent of the old Hulk Hogan move.] She was a sophomore sorority girl who had the build of a pulling guard. She was always a booty call away any time of day, and had already put together quite an impressive resume after only a year and a half of college. Several of the guys on the team, in fact, had been down that (well-trodden) path. I shuddered at the thought.

After dinner we got ready for the night’s parties. Now let’s stop to take in this full picture:

• I was 17-going-on-18;
• I was not a drinker;
• I was about to spend a Saturday night partying with members of the W&J football team;
• …who also happened to be members of the school’s rowdiest and most notorious frat.
  

I mean, even if you’re drinking along with me as you read this and have already forgotten the story’s title, you’ve still got to be thinking, “Holy shitballs—this will end up in a bad place...”

There’s no slowroll when you’re drinking at W&J. That’s a casual, understood truth for me now, but I was utterly ignorant to it on that January evening. The second a can or bottle is opened, it’s “go time”; whether it be the last night of Carnival, or a random night when you’re babysitting a naïve high school kid.

Pregaming at Washington & Jefferson is equivalent to the two minute drill at a lesser drinking school. A case of beer found its way into the room…somehow. I’m sure I knew of its origin at some point, but not anymore. We cracked open cans of Beast, and my temporary guardians were throwing them back with little care about anything else in the world. I was sipping, they were gulping.

Their boy George joined us, and we began playing “Caps”. The fact that they had a stash of beer bottle caps saved specifically for this pastime unnerved me, slightly—especially since I had never played this game (or any, really) before. I was seated across the floor from Block; as the first bottle cap was about to fly through the air, they informed me that he was the best player in the frat. Maybe even the best at W&J. I might’ve gotten “Wha—” out of my mouth before a cap landed in my cup.

I was told I had to chug.

*in my head*

“This just doesn’t seem fair. I’m new to this shit. Maybe I should say
some—”

Another hit for Block. Another chug for me. Another can of Beast.

“I mean, I can handle this shit. Fuck that, I’ve gotta be a man! Who
are they—”

Another hit. Another chug.

“Fuck! This dude doesn’t miss! Was this one of his daily chores on
the farm where he grew—”

Hit. Chug. New can.

“I…what was I thinking about before?”

Varsity: “You okay?”
Me: “Yeah, I’m cool.”

“You’re NOT cool, dick! You—”

Hit. Chug.

“Make this stop, NOW! How fucking stupid—”

Hit. Chug. New can.

“I…whew…did the room suddenly get spinny?”

Hit. Chug.

“Thas a lots beer...”

Varsity: “How you feelin’?”
Me: “I—”

The vomit hit my shirt before I knew what had happened.

Here’s where I learned something important, though. You see, as an inexperienced kid surrounded by men, you expect a moment of weakness such as that to be met with disapproval, and for shame to be cast upon you. …And it is. But you also expect them to ostracize you, and to alienate you for the rest of the night—if not for the rest of their lives. Instead, those men chuckle at the destruction they’ve brought about and crack open more beers; then Block grabs you a t-shirt out of his closet, Varsity gets you some mouthwash, and you all head out to the quads to start the night’s partying in earnest.

Welcome to adulthood.

We stepped out into a cold night that pulsated with music and a lack of worry. Varsity kept me near his side, so as to prevent me from careening into any real trouble. But he threw everything he could at me full force.

I remember being introduced to girls at parties. Lots of them. At every party. I remember dancing with some. I remember never not having a cup or can in my hand. I remember stumbling back and forth and back again through a maze of sidewalks leading from one fraternity house to another, finally ending up at the Kappa Sig house.

I remember a guy onstage inviting people to chug beers with live goldfish in them. I remember telling Varsity there was no way in hell he was getting me up on that stage, and then watching him shrug his shoulders, go up himself, and down a goldfish. I remember finding myself behind the bar handing out beers for a while, until a Kappa Sig saw me and stopped my bartending career before it got his house thrown off campus. And I remember calling it a night—probably around 11:30-midnight—stumbling to the frat house alone, climbing up to the bunk above Varsity’s bed, and being asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Then I remember the bed giving a slight wobble, and awaking to hear a female voice I didn’t know, accompanied by a male one I did.

Girl: *laughing* “I caaaannnn’tttt…”
Varsity: “Yes you can!”
Girl: “I’m too drunk! Can’t I just stay here?”
Varsity: “You can’t sleep here!”
Girl: “Why not?”
Varsity: “What’re you gonna do if you stay down here?”
Girl: *laughing* “What do you want me to do?...”
Varsity: “Why don’t you…”
*fade away to sounds of kissing, rustling, sucking…*

Thankfully, the alcohol had taken me again.

When I awoke the next day, my entire physical being had been shred apart. I may have had more impressive hangovers in the years since, but you always remember your first. Varsity’s visitor had since left, and he wore the carefree shame of a man willing to own his mistakes.

Varsity: “That was [Hulkamania]…”
Me: “What?!”
Varsity: “Hey…”

As I gathered my stuff, Block walked in with his typical shit-eating grin.

Block: *to Varsity* “How did your night end up?”
Varsity: “What?”
Block: “I brought her back here for him *points at me*…”
Me: “Wait—WHAT?!”
Block: “…but she was too drunk and fat to climb up to the top bunk. So I just told her to climb into bed with [Varsity].”
Me: “Thank god!”
Varsity: “I was wondering where the hell she came from…”

Is it any wonder I enrolled the following summer?

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.

Drunks Say the Darndest Things 5

TD: “‘Za is so good!’ should’ve made it.”
Me: “Yeah, well…You had one in there.”
TD: “Yeah, I know…”

Four years ago, it occurred to me that my drunken friends say some really stupid things. …Okay, okay; my drunken friends and I say some really stupid things. I threw together six or so quick examples to prove this thesis, and posted it without much more of a thought.

Fast-forward to January 2012; after posting a fourth edition of the now annual quotes write-up, my little-sister-from-another-mother was questioning my selection. It’s not like TD opened the blog post and was angered at finding I had published a quote of hers. No, her dispute was over the choice I had made among her personal catalog of drunken quotes. She wasn’t uptight over me putting one of her goofier moments on the internet; she was critical that it wasn’t the goofiest moment of hers that I could have used.

These are my friends. And this is just one of the many reasons why I love them.

In 2011, I finally had the good sense to keep a log on my phone of specific quotes as they happened—or, to be more accurate, I tried to keep a log. The best laid plans of mice and blotto men… This past year I was much better at it, and I compiled quite the hitlist for this edition of DSTDT in the process. If you said something to me (or around me) that isn’t listed below, you probably weren’t as funny as you thought. …Or I was just a lot drunker than you thought.

Without much further ado, here are more moments of drunken brilliance and brilliant drunkeness in my crew’s endless pursuit of the perfect buzz.

• This past St. Patrick’s Day, our girl Belle was injured before a single Car Bomb had been detonated. As she bled from Eve’s wound, we did our best to make her forget about it fun of her for it. While she and Jay Swag played against TJ and Rackt on Shannon’s W&J-Black-and-Red cornhole set, a thought came over me. “Wait…” I said, interrupting TJ’s throw. “Shouldn’t Belle be throwing the red bags?”
  
  
• One night in late summer, TJ called me to share one of his typically insane stories, the kind that only he could find himself involved in. The female antagonist in the tale, who had quite literally gone insane, was seemingly driven over the edge by Swag’s refusal to date her. A little later that night, I texted the man in question for background on this drama.
  
  Me: “Apparently your penis is the source of much magic and sorcery.”
  Swag: “lol. Just talked to [TJ] for 20 mins. Holy fuck.”
  Me: “Yeah. Insanity. All caused by you not being freer with the velvet rope you call a zipper.”
  Swag: “lol. She’s been avoiding me like the plague.
  A) I don’t care.
  B) You’re not attractive.
  C) I don’t play games, I’m a grown ass man.”
  Me: “LOL. The force is strong in this one.”
  Swag: “She’s stupid. You boob bang someone one time and they have to catch feelings. *sigh*”
  
  
• My girl Steph came into town in late April to visit and show off her very prominent baby bump. She gathered about 12 of her friends for dinner one night, including TJ, Dupa, and me. As we all B.S.’d around the table, her friend Molly brought up a cultural difference between companies in Europe and those here in the states: some European corporations keep beds in their offices so that employees can take naps. I immediately saw the number 1 reason why this idea would never work in the US. “There are too many sexual harassment laws for me to have a bed in my office.”
  
  
• During our night of revelry in Ybor City, TK uncovered a drinking issue that seems specific to massage therapists. Rackt was trying to describe an injury she had suffered at CrossFit, and as she stumbled in detailing the location of the strain, TK began rattling off Latin-worded diagnoses. Catching himself, he stopped and explained, “When I get drunk I start naming muscles.”
  
  
• As TK and I sat taking in the scene at Gaspar’s Grotto later in the night, a fella at the other end of the bar was romancin’ and b-boy stancin’. When he walked past a cute emo girl who was standing near us, drinking from a glass of clear liquid, he stopped to engage her in small talk.
  
  Guy: “What’re you drinking?”
  Girl: “Gin & Tonic.”
  Guy: *walking away* “Ah…classy bitch.”
  
  
• As I documented last summer, several of my friends took part in a kickball tournament one Saturday in August, and then hit the bar afterwards—hard. At Shady Grove, talk amongst some of the women in our group centered around Wall Street’s moment of glory, when an open bathroom door left him exposed in Alex’s glass-walled shower.
  
  Wall Street: “I should’ve pressed my cock against the glass.”
  Me: *sipping from my Manhattan* “If you had looked closely, you would’ve seen the imprints from all of the other guys who’ve pressed their cocks against the glass in Alex’s shower.”
  
  
• The following Monday, I texted Alex to ask if she had caught The Newsroom the night prior. But her hangover from Saturday’s fun, it seemed, had handicapped her well into the night. “I think right about then,” she texted back, “I was laying on my hardwood floor praying for god to just take me.”
  
  
• TK was barhopping around St. Pete and Treasure Island one night last year, and in doing so managed to spill a drink on his shirt. When he happened upon a random, unattractive chick, she called him out.
  
  Chick: “Is that cum on your shirt?”
  TK: “No, but you want some on your face?”
  Chick: “Yeah!”
  TK: *blank stare*
  
  
• With cold germs and flu bugs wreaking havoc on the East Coast in the month of December, all three of my team members at work were sick at different times during a two-week period. Since all four of us sit in the same small, open-plan section of the office, it was a minor miracle that I avoided coming down with something. When this fact occurred to my manager, she asked, “How didn’t YOU get sick?” With a grin, I answered, “I disinfect myself every night.”
  
  
• The Saturday before NYE found several of us at TD & Boy Toy’s house for a night day of boozing. During a furious game of (drunken) Catch Phrase, Boy Toy tossed out clues to try to bring his teammates closer to his given word. TD wasn’t on his team, but wasn’t about to let that—or inhibitions—stop her.
  
  Boy Toy: “Uh…ok. When I come to something, I come…?”
  TD: “BUCKETS!”
  
  
• My friend Ton’s wedding was a blur of booze, dancing, lewd behavior in the photo booth, and more booze, all in the wilds of Eastern Ohio. The next morning I awoke in a room at the Days Inn—next to a pizza, courtesy of Dupa. Although my travelling companion hadn’t passed out quite as early as I had, his recollection of the previous night’s events was no less clouded. He hopped out of his bed and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. As I put the pizza box on the dresser, Dupa called out, “Apparently I ate a piece of pizza while pissing; there’s a crust in here.”
  
  
• Jay Swag’s 30th birthday was a three-day murder scene, where everyone put his or her liver in a pit and ordered it to put the lotion—and a can of Four Loko Watermelon—in the basket. As things got underway on Thursday evening, I cracked open a Loko, sat down on the couch, and snapped a picture of the can with my phone. When everyone in the room stared at me, I looked up and explained, “I’m going to want to know why tomorrow.”
  
  
• The pace of our intake hadn’t slowed down one bit by the following Saturday. Collette’s drunk wasn’t satisfied with sadistically torturing her internal organs; it even projected racist stereotypes onto her.She asked for a sip of my Loko, having never had tried it before. She smacked her lips, examining the flavor. “Is that watermelon,” she asked, “or does it just taste like that because I’m Black?”
  

Social Drinking Excellence: Jeremie Calo

*sigh* Fucking Florida. It's always Florida.

From The Huffington Post:

Jeremie Calo was arrested earlier this month for refusing to pay his $101 bar tab and fighting with a Florida restaurant manager after he and his date, Tiffani Lynn Barganier, allegedly had sex on a patio table in view of children.

...On the call, Murphy can be heard telling Calo to "sit down." The employee also tells the responder the man tried to flee the bar with two beers in his hands.

"He's shit faced now. He's being combative," Murphy explained.

Start the clock...

1. Is it just me, or does this lose credibility right around when Calo starts throwing up? The timing and sound are rather...convenient.
2. ...Never mind. All credibility was restored when the police called back.
3. In reading this account, one of the first things that popped into my head was "Well...wait...where did the girl go?" When you hit about the four minute mark of the recording, though, you realize...she got away! What the fuck?
4. That must be some good nook-nook, to be willing to catch a case while she escapes.
5. ...Or to, you know, feel the need to hit it on a table at a restaurant filled with people and kids.
6. Then again, they do know her name, which means he must have snitched at some point. Someone just gave up some hero sex.
7. I'm not sure what the absolute-worst-case scenario to wake up to after a blackout would be; but this has to be close to it, right? Typically, when you nervously ask your friends what you did the night before, you get something rather tame. "You tried to hit on some chicks but they laughed at you." Or, "You were too drunk to get into the bar, so I had to abandon my pursuit of true love." But in the back of your mind, you're just waiting for them to say, "Well, you had sex with some slut on a table at the restaurant, in plain sight of some little kids. Then the manager called the cops and held you under citizen's arrest while the chick ran..."
8. In case you were curious (I certainly was), Miss Barganier is pictured at right. Which brings to mind an observation I made while sitting in the Tampa airport last week...

Mr. Calo, your Rummy is in the mail. It's coming with a Holiday Inn gift certificate and a pack of Trojans.

Big Swag Steps Off Laughin'

I wrote in May that 30th birthdays are kind of a big deal. They represent the end of a process that begins with the first loosened baby tooth and then carries through puberty and on past using a proper name when ordering a cocktail. On your 30th, the last remnants of youth are shed. Sure, some try to accelerate the aging process by jumping into marriages and parenthood in their 20s—the less-homophobic cousin to “pray away the gay” camps. But, in those rare moments when these misguided souls find themselves free of the shackles by which they have willingly come to be bound, they still fall back on the their birth certificates as evidence that they can party all night and laugh it off in the morning. And it’s accepted currency—until they turn 30. Then they’re as tattered and worn as the rest of us, if not worse.

Dupa has done it. T.C. Aff. Mitch Canada. I did it before all of them, though not before TJ, Tony, and Pak. But two weeks ago it was finally Jay Swag’s turn to join the Grown-Ass Man Club.

For a guy who treats his ordinary birthdays like full-blown, must-see events, turning 30 presented Swag with a new mountaintop of shenanigans to ascend towards. His birthday was Thursday, August 8th; being that his good friend Tennessee (or “The Nashville Knuckler”, as I kept calling him that week) was coming into town that morning, Swag called off work for both Thursday and Friday, with every intention of staging a (minimum) three-day boozathon. He even suggested holding Beer Olympics on the first day, but relented when he realized he didn’t have most of the supplies such a sporting spectacle would require. He fell back on a tried and true game plan: I’m drinking, Tennessee’s drinking; come on over if you want to drink, too.

What he hadn’t factored in, though, was that Wednesday nights he and others play in a kickball league (…I know). After every game they then retire to their clubhouse—a.k.a. Rumshakers—and proceed to party like they have just won the World Series. This led to Swag drinking away the final hours of his twenties, and led to me receiving pictures the next day from both Finger Bang and TJ, in both of which Swag was laying shirtless in his backyard. In TJ’s photo (which was accompanied by the text, “The last photograph ever taken of [Swag] in his 20s. Rather fitting.”), our boy was facedown with a lit cigarette in his outstretched hand, his pale back seemingly intensifying the moonlight that it reflected amid a green pool of grass.

I arrived at Swag and Canada’s Mt. Washington home around 7:30 Thursday night to find Swag, Tennessee, Belle, Bang, and Entertainer drinking Leinenkugels and in relaxed, jovial moods. Then TJ and Canada returned from a beer run, carrying into the house a case of Miller Lite…and a case of Four Loko. I mentally high-fived myself for having had the forethought to call off work the next day.

We watched the Pittsburgh/Philly preseason game, hung out and just enjoyed the moment, drinking and laughing like a group of good friends in a primetime sitcom. Belle danced on a chair, I cracked open a Loko to the cheers of those around me, and everyone fired bottle caps and good-natured jokes at each other. Alex eventually made it up to the party, took the stick, and carried on the pace as if she had been there all day. When I found Bang laying on the couch and drifting away around 9:30 p.m., she blamed her sluggishness on being drunk.

Me: “Would it sober you up if I took you upstairs and banged you silly? Because I’ll do it.”
Bang: “Will you bang me sober?”
Me: “Yes, sweetie. I will do that for a friend.”

By 10:30 we both made our exit from the party; Bang needed to go home and rest up for work the next day, and she dropped me off at the home of a “special *wink* friend” who lives a couple of streets away from Swag and Canada. …Yup.

I played the sidelines Friday (I mean, I’m not a machine…), but Swag certainly didn’t. He, Tennessee, and Belle hit the Pirates game, and managed to fill their time before, during, and after it with booze. “A man got to have a code.”

After 60+ hours of nearly-nonstop alcohol consumption, you would expect a newly-30-year-old man to slow things down, right? Wrong. At 10:18 a.m. Saturday, Swag posted this to Facebook:

“Well, I'm awake so anytime you dickheads want to come over, I'm going to crack beer #1 in less than 5 minutes. Since I've nearly refused to make any decisions about times/places, I'm just going to check-in on here. Otherwise, I'm sure you have Mitch or [Tennessee]'s number. I hope everyone remembers to bring loose women. Extra credit for ones that are morally bankrupt. Can't wait till see all of you fuckers. Deuces.”

He’d later tell me, “Remember when I said I was going to ‘crack beer #1 in less than 5 minutes’? That beer turned into a Four Loko.”

I walked through the door carrying a 30-pack of Miller Lite at about 4 p.m., commanding, “Shut up, [Belle],” as she told some story to Swag, Canada, their buddy Tim, Tennessee, and Canada’s ladyfriend Collette. I squeezed my case into the fridge, where two more Miller Lite 30-packs and a case of Miller Lite pounders were already residing. I cracked open a beer, joined them in the living room to watch Olympic handball, and away we went.

Swag, Belle, and Tennessee had a new—albeit really strange—obsession that week: Listening to “Goodbye Horses” and dancing around like Buffalo Bill…

*sips his drink*

…I have no punchline for this, folks.

I also have no cause or explanation to add. The most telling fact about all of this, though, is that I had no real moment of shock as it was happening. “Swag and Belle are imitating a cross-dressing serial killer from a movie. …So what’s the score of the handball game?”

We were eventually joined by JL, Bang, Courtney, and Alex, and we made our way to Rumshakers. Once there…well, I’m having trouble remembering exactly what happened there. I know Tony met up with us in time. I remember talking with Joe, a bartender (who bears a striking resemblance to Chad Johnson, and who is nearly as charismatic), as we watched female members of my crew run around goofily. Which girls, or what exactly they were doing to make the two of us shake our heads…yeah. Gone with the booze. I also remember going across the street with several others to get some dinner from Dairy Queen, which we brought back and ate in the bar. But what I drank, what quotes others or I made, what hearts I stole, and what laws I broke are all a blur.

From Rumshakers, we backtracked back to Mt. Washington, heading to Redbeard's. We drank and celebrated there for a couple of hours before finally returning to Swag and Canada’s around 11:30. Checking out from the bars before midnight during a birthday bash? How positively “30” of us. We finished the night throwing back beers at the house, some people congregated (relatively) quietly in the living room around the TV, others (including the birthday boy) loitered on the front porch, enjoying the summer night.

By around 1:30 I moseyed off into the darkness, finding my way over to my “special friend”. Since she had taken in a healthy night of drinking as well, it was 11:30 before either of us got out of bed with any real resolve the next morning. In doing so, I checked Facebook and saw a 6 a.m. post from Swag asking if anyone else was awake. “Wow…” After a hearty brunch, my friend dropped me off at Swag’s, and I walked in to find Collette, Canada, Belle, Courtney, and JL in a joint state of “fml”. They reported that, though most everyone else had called it a night around the time that I did, Swag stayed up well into the morning, drinking and roaming the house. “I probably woke each guy up at least once to do a shot with me,” he explained when I went upstairs and found him awake again. “Mitch and I did a shot of Red Stag at 6:30.”