Drunk, Half Naked, and Yelling at the Mailbox

St Patrick’s

I saw a Leprechaun once…

I was in Dublin, waiting to cross at the traffic lights and a midget on a bicycle rode past me. He was drinking a Guinness as he rode too! I know it’s not a real leprechaun… but it’s close enough…I mean, really, if you saw a midget drinking a Guinness on a bicycle in Dublin, you should be allowed to call him a Leprechaun.

That was in 2002. This was 2005 and I expected to have another good time, so we started kind of early, but the St Patrick celebrations didn’t start until late… we started drinking with the start of the college basketball playoffs (also known as March Madness - 64 teams playing in 32 games.) A sports fans dream. Lots of channel changing and trash talk.

As we watched, I decided to play a little drinking game with the guys:

-choose a number between one and ten
-when a point is scored (by either team) look at the game clock
-if your number appears in the ones column, you must take a drink

along with:

-if anyone's cell phone rings everyone must take a drink

...that guarantees that anytime anyone answers their phone, the background noise is full of the sounds of glasses and people cheering. This makes it easier to invite people....

At about 10:30 all the games were done so we went to FATS (Fifth Avenue-Tenth Street - Kensington) and were joined by a couple of girls. Our waitress, Candace was totally hot for me (or so I wanted to believe). She sat down at our table, ignored everyone else, and told me all about how she really was just waiting tables part time until she could get started doing makeup professionally. I nodded enthusiastically and asked her the perfect question.

“Is that a really competitive field to get into?”

An open ended question like this will give her a chance to tell you what she likes/ doesn’t like about her job. She’ll share as much as she feels like, and if she’s looking for someone to listen to her, and isn’t getting that sort of attention from anyone else, you’ll know.

Once she’s talking, she’ll be happy to tell you about the best/worst parts of her day/work/whatever and you appear sympathetic to her life outside of the bar. If you nod, smile, and say “Really?” a couple of times, you can make some good progress. Just be careful not to ignore other girls at the table.

I did, and the girls that had joined us previously got up and left. They even took one of the other guys at our table with them.

We wrapped up our bill and tried to catch up with them. But it was too late. They had jumped into a cab and left Jay out on the street to find us.

After meeting outside, we decided the night wasn’t over. We walked around the corner to the Yardhouse. An upscale cocktail bar with a gentleman standing at the door. He appeared to be the doorman.

“How are you doing?” I said to him as we started through the door.

“Sorry. There’s no room.” He replied as he looked at the five of us.

“Pardon? The place is half full!” I replied

“We’re not serving anymore.”

For a place that wasn’t serving, the waitresses seemed to be taking a lot of orders. If he was going to refuse us entry, I wasn’t about to make it easy for him.

“Really? It’s only 1 o clock.”

“Let me check with my manager, I’ll see what I can do.” He said to me with a tone that implied he was doing me a favour.

He turned to walk towards the bar. I didn’t wait at the door; I followed him up to the bar and stood beside him while he asked the manager if he should let us in.

The manager, a bald headed man who seemed quite busy pouring drinks looked at the doorman, then at me.

“We’re 5 guys looking to have a pint of beer to finish off our St. Patricks Day.” I said.

The bartender looked back at the doorman and said to him “Why can’t they come in?”

The doorman replied,” but I tho…”

“It’s only 1 O-Clock. We’re not closing for another hour.” The manager interrupted his employee in a tone that told the doorman that he was about to become an ex-doorman.

I decided not to be part of that conversation and said “We’ll just be at that table over there; you guys can sort things out and send a waitress when you’re ready.”

We sat down and Anthony was the first to comment. “That doorman was a dick.”

“I think he’s about to get fired.” I said, and we watched him walk out the door…

I didn’t see a waitress nearby so I headed back to the bar and spoke to another bartender, Chris. I asked him for 4 yards of beer.

That’s right, yards. See, at the Yardhouse, they pour the beers into glasses that are 2 feet tall. To prevent them tipping they come with a large wooden stand. Chris reminded me that these glasses were expensive, about $40 each, and if I break them, I’m buying them.

“No worries, here’s my credit card.” I offered.

As we sat and began our drunken recap of the days events,

we argued over why you could possibly get away with saying ‘nice ass’ to a girl you just met, but if you said it to a waitress, that’s harassment. (see footnote)

I leaned over towards the guys and said “This is the best bar ever!!” and directed their attention to the table next to us.

The two girls at the booth next to us were kissing.

And there we sat. 5 guys watching a couple of good looking girls making out right next to us… we tried not to drop our $40 glasses on the floor and tried not to all stare at the same time.

The bartender, Chris, waved me over to the bar. Apparently he had heard of our incident with the doorman and was on damage control. He offered to buy me a drink. I gladly accepted. Then I offered to buy him one to show my appreciation for his appreciation of our business. Then I think I bought some drinks for the girls in order to show my appreciation for their appreciation of each other in public. Then my internal organs began to shut down in protest. I used my remaining sense to take a cab home.

The next morning, I got up and went to the fridge. I found the last yogurt cup (there were no clean spoons so I grabbed a semi-clean fork)

I scooped it into my mouth, confident that healthy food would make me feel better…

It didn’t. Either the yogurt was bad, or it was reacting with the leftover tequila in my stomach. Regardless, things went bad.

Real bad…

…I wasn’t on solid food till Saturday.

Footnote: It’s harassment in the case of the waitress, because she is required to continue her shift, and return to serve you. Someone you just met is free to leave, or throw a drink in your face.