Last Night I was Groped by a Tranny: A True Story

Most everyone from my generation is fond of the eighties. It was the decade in which we were born, and although we weren’t really old enough to absorb the culture of the time, it is an easy time to be enamored with. I believe this might have a lot to do with the extremely exaggerated characteristics of the style and music. Especially the music. As a result, my generation has a soft spot for eighties themed parties and bars.

Such observations were made after the evening’s goings on had transpired. My break-down of the cultural ripples of the 1980′s wasn’t something I was capable of as I slammed Vodka-Sunny D’s with my friend while playing Street’s of Rage II for the Sega Genesis, a pre-game routine tailored to the nerdy alcoholic. This continued until it was decided that we would go to Rue 13, a bar off Washington that features “80′s Night” every friday.

Or so I thought.

Upon entering Rue 13 I knew something was amiss. Instead of the 80′s music and accompanying videos, there was loud throbbing techno playing. An hour and a few PBR’s later, a man, dressed as a woman, jumped up on stage and started telling jokes, all of which involved tranny related humor, none of which I could really relate to. Finally, another transsexual was introduced and continued with a dance routine. Such went the evening. It was one of those instances that what was going on was impossible to take your eyes off, no matter how disturbing it was.

As I was returning from the bathroom, a dance number was ending. I walked through the crowd around the stage towards the table my group and I were occupying. The dancer was leaving the stage and I glanced over just in time to see a great big set of bouncing fake boobs coming right at me. This performer was clad in nothing more that a few strands of tape. By the looks of it, post-op. There was no bulge where there should have been, but an adam’s apple and hands big enough to palm a basketball… or my scrotum.

As she lumbered toward me on her/his way to the back, I quickly turned sideways in an attempt to slide by without making contact of any kind. She didn’t make any attempt to dodge, and as she dragged his/her giant breasts across my chest, I felt her tremendous hand close around my genitals.

Oh. God. No.

My mouth formed a scream, but no audible noise came out. I was in shock. Paralyzed with fear. This nearly naked he/she groped my goodies. She got a healthy handful of whats most dear to me. I closed my eyes and kept walking. I made it back to the table, which was erupting with laughter. It was just a matter of time before something of this nature happened. I have been rolling the dice for too long, and now I am on the receiving end in the worst way. The night didn’t end there, rather with a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito and a case of the spins, per usual. The roller coaster that is my life manifests itself literally after a night of hard drinking and tranny molestation, the simple recipe for a good time.

Jolanda, the Racing Turtles, and Taco Hell

Every now and then it is my wonderful privilege to break the cycle of my life, scatter the routine with a trip outside the confinements of my everyday regimen. This escape being embodied by an atypical trip to an unfamiliar place to practice in my favorite and most venerated pastime – binge drinking. A debauch, if you will. And what better city to embark on a jag than the colorful city of Chicago?

The night I chose to chronicle of the extended weekend, was the night spent at Big Joe’s. Aside from a typical Chicago corner bar, Big Joe’s offered something unusual to the patrons tipping back the usual. Big Joe’s on Friday nights features Turtle Racing (See Fig. 1). As strange as it may sound, the bar has an incredible system worked out to, not only benefit the customer, but the bar itself. When you purchase a drink you get a few tickets, all bearing a number on them, raffle tickets, so to speak. The announcer then draws numbers to see who will partake in the next turtle race, drawing yet another number from a hat determining which racer (turtle) will be theirs to cheer for. The first place turtle earning the lucky drinker a t-shirt, the last place turtle earning you a free beer.

(Fig. 1)

So in order to get a better chance of winning a t-shirt, you must drink more. Each turtle has a name, and Jolanda was the “Slowest fucking turtle in the world” as emphatically chanted by the regulars every time her number was drawn.

I immediately fell in love with this place. So much so that i befriended the announcer, turtle race caller for the past four years. I had so many raffle tickets by the end of the night that i couldn’t check them all for numbers quick enough. Not to mention all of the side bets I made and lost resulted in my having to take gross shots as a punishment. The only souvenir I got from Big Joe’s that evening was the Chicago Yellow Pages, which, apparently, I swiped in my drunken stupor as I staggered from the bar.

Perhaps even more entertaining than the turtle racing, however, was the Taco Bell we stopped by on the way home. Situated in the heart of Boy’s Town, Chicago’s gay district, it was truly a site to behold.

I want to first preface my experience at this fast food joint with my personal annotations regarding Taco Bell. I believe, in my heart, that Taco Bell is the most American fast food restaurant in this great nation. The first and simplest argument might be that it is mexican food. This, I can assure you, cannot be further from the truth. The food served at Taco Bell (if you want to call it ‘food’ – apparently the USDA says no, but my taste buds and ravenous desire for Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes say otherwise) is a flagrant oversimplification of anything that can be deemed authentic. What is America other than a fluffed up, fatter, greasier, cheesier, cheaper version of many other cultures?They could be shredding brown paper bags and soaking them in meat water, but I wouldn’t give a shit because its not in my nature to question something that tastes so god damn yummy.

Amassed at this Taco Bell was every stereotype I could rattle off at the top of my head. Asians snapping photographs, Hispanics wearing fitted flat bills conversing in head-spinngingly-fast Spanish. A woman of the African American persuasion was shouting about how much she distrusted Caucasians (to put it very lightly). White middle aged girls lumbering through the line, heads buried in their iPhones, obliviously bouncing off people as they texted a million miles per hour. I sat and chewed on my Beefy 5 Layer Burrito and just soaked in all the sights and sounds. How many people can crowd around a soda machine before a fight breaks out?

I tipped the cashier more than I tipped any bartender that night, because she worked in Taco Hell. The look on her face described the indescribable. She was a warrior, hardened by reality. I didn’t want to leave that place, but the food coma set in like ton of bricks. Coupled with a day’s worth of boozing, I was down and out in Chicago. But I can still see the face of that cashier, as vivid as it were yesterday. Make no mistake people, the Taco Bell in Boy’s Town, after midnight, should be ranked in the top ten things to do nestled among Navy Pier and The Magnificent Mile. Check it out during your next visit, alcohol will help.

The Cliff Cave Library Harbors Knowledge, and Distance Pee Records?

The Cliff Cave library was a place that I frequented as a child. The library offers children a freedom in the form of literature, and such liberties are few as a young’n. The glorious library card could grant you access to a wealth of knowledge, be it drawing books to trace, anatomy books to oogle at, or perhaps an R.L. Stein teen read if horror fiction was your bag. I loved going to the Cliff Cave library, but not for any of the aformentioned reasons.

My favorite avenue of the local library branch was the bathroom.

The bathroom at the Cliff Cave Library was a typical unassuming public restroom. It contained all the features of a standard bathroom: sinks, stalls, soap, hand dryers complete with profanities etched on them, and the thick waft of cheap industrial air freshener. The one unique attribute of this facility were the urinals. They were of the conventional white variety, porcelain, etc. But they gloriously stretched to the floor like a lavish white curtain adorning a chapel’s stained glass window.

The style of this urinal provided a fantastic opportunity for adolescent boys. Before any books were gazed upon, I could be found in the bathroom – inching slowly away from the wall mounted toilets, feral stream arcing across the room into the urinal. The object was to see how far you could get from the toilet while still hitting the target, the target being the oversized urinal. Challenge your friends! Afternoons at the library meant 5 minutes of blissful streams of pee cascading over the length of the room, giggles echoing from behind the closed men’s room door.

When other children spent prepping for a library trip by reading, in order to get their Pasta house gift certificate, or free six flags admission for completing their summer reading, I was chugging water, filling my bladder with piss rather than my brain with knowledge – which, upon further reflection, is quite revealing of the person I am today.

An F5 Bachelor Party

It has long since come to my attention that I am a favorite invite to a bachelor party. Probably has something to do with my lack of conscience or insatiable lust for attention, but this particular bachelor party I genuinely feel like I guilted my way into. After designing* numerous aspects of wedding ‘Save the Date’ flyers and wedding shower invites with little to no expense (A bottle of Jack Daniels and a sincere request for an open bar reception) the groom, an older brother of a very good friend of mine, put me on the bachelor party list. I. Love. Bachelor Parties. Now – this particular bachelor celebration, was without a doubt, one of the most entertaining outings I have been a part of, hence the F5 categorization**.

*Don’t be fooled by this word, designed. I went to school for design, but I have no real accomplishments or talent in such a field. What I do have are the programs necessary to do design things, and though I learned to navigate such programs, I stake no claims that I am good at it. My college GPA can confirm this.

** The Fujita scale (F-Scale) is a scale for classifying the power of a tornado, based on the damage a tornado inflicts on man-made structures and vegetation. An F5 is the highest class of tornado, averaging winds in excess of 300 MPH causing total destruction to everything in it’s path.

Anecdotes aside, our first scene takes place in Westport Plaza. This is where we had hotel rooms, and we needed to get checked in before the evening commenced. As we approached the building, we saw what appeared to be a man in full riot gear, holding a container full of bees. Very strange, I thought. Then, a group of people dressed in robes walked into the hotel. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw when we entered the lobby. People dressed as robots, Star Wars characters, dragons, elves, and one man dressed as Beetlejuice. Holy shit. We asked the clerk what was going on and she informed us that the hotel was hosting “Archon” a convention for all things Sci-Fi. Perfect. We were joined by a man dressed in full safari garb as we rode the elevator up. At this point it was just my friend and I, doing everything within our power to stifle laughing in people’s faces. The man rode silently, and at one point, reached into a leather satchel that was hanging from his belt, and pulled out an iPhone. Game over. I lost it, as did my friend. Standing in this elevator laughing in this man’s face could probably rank up there with my all time awkward moments.

We gathered the members of the party, took a picture with Superman, and headed out to Pujol’s 5 – a restaurant in Westport. Things went fine, except it was noted that the groom was downing drinks.. It was early, we reminded him to no avail, pace yourself young padawan. From there we all filed into a party bus and began pounding drinks. The unleashed us at McGurk’s where we drank some more. McGurk’s was rather tame, but the longer we stayed there, the more noticeable was the transformation happening with the groom. His eyes were glassy, he lost his train of thought mid conversation, all indicators that he was losing his grip, and alcohol was winning.

We then rode to the Landing in hopes to go to Morgan Street. I refused to go to Big Daddy’s (If you are unfamiliar with the reasons why, please click the following link - http://joshuachip.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the-officer-is-not-amused/ ) The ride there was a Jager fueled acapella filled beer slinging shit show. The bouncers at the door wouldn’t let our bachelor in, even though the rest of the crew was already inside and waiting in line at the bathroom. So we jumped ship there and headed one bar down to a place where scantly clad women were dancing on the bar. The groom was having trouble walking on his own at this point, which showed when he poured his water all over the floor. As he took a step forward, he slipped in his water and did a 180 into a perfect split. It was quite dexterous, but undoubtedly painful. I busied myself in a lovely conversation with an older gentleman on his time served in the Navy, yelled over the shitty cover band that was playing. I lost hours talking to this man about something I couldn’t even recall moments later.

It was then decided that we would head to the Eastside. This was more of a decision by the bachelor party, more so than the vegetative bachelor himself. So we left for PT’s. This part of the night is, naturally, a little hazy. I was pretty drunk going forth, as you should be going to a place like PT’s. At some point, I lost sight of our husband to be, and was pulled onstage along with a few other members of our party. It was a competition of sorts to see who could last the longest, dance the sexiest, or some shit like that. As my friend reached for his wallet, he dropped a 20 dollar bill, which the stripper nearest us greedily snatched up. My friend looked at me, as the stripper circled us and mouthed, “You owe me 10 bucks.”

I looked over to see how the other gentleman were faring and saw the youngest member of our bachelor party was butt naked humping the main stage floor as his stripper accomplice spanked him. Oh chubby Jesus, I thought. I bailed off the stage, and wondered about the undoubtedly unsanitary floor my friend was now rubbing his bare genitals on. At this point I lost my appetite for all things strip club. He ended up winning the ‘Cash and Prizes’ which turned out to be nothing more than a strand of tickets to their midget wrestling event in the upcoming weeks. In his disgust with the prize, and hopefully himself, he gave me most of the tickets. I took the tickets outside and traded them with the hot dog vendor for a chilidog. This was my last coherent recollection of the evening. I staved off vomiting in the bus all night, which was my only real goal.

Flashback: I Remember My First Beer… Literally

As much as I have blogged about my drinking habits and the situations it puts me in, I have never really broken down my draw to being intoxicated. In complete actuality, it should be a very unappealing thing to me at this point. After all, it is a depressant. It ruins your internal organs, kills your brain cells, and inhibits most of your senses. Yet I love the feeling. Like a moth to the flame, but the flame is 8 PBR’s, a desensitizingly  strong whiskey-Mt. Dew, and another PBR (But the last one in a can, not bottled). Just trying to paint a picture for you here.

Delving into that surprisingly deep memory pool of mine, I surface with the crisp tale of the first beer I ever put to my lips. I must have been a junior-high student, perhaps younger. I was at my good friends house (whom happens to be present during a lot of these stories) when boredom struck. It is my belief that boredom in a developing young chubby junior high-schooler leads to bad and destructive behavior. Knowing that said friend’s mother kept a store of Budweiser in the fridge, we swiped one and sauntered off to the woods behind his house.

The woods behind my friend’s house was a sort of “Forbidden Forest” type place for all things sinister. In the woods was an old fort, kept within were pornographic magazines, and, probably, a pile of found tennis and or golf balls. This provided a safe environment for consuming our procurement of ONE beer. Once safely shrouded by the trees, we opened the beer and took a swig apiece.

Ugh.

This tastes like shit, I recall saying. Yeah, like a gross shitty over-carbonated soda. Aren’t we supposed to mix alcohol with something? Isn’t that what we do? So, using the only mixer readily at our disposal, a ‘Punch’ flavored SqueezIt, we mixed. Swilling the concoction of our own imaginative misconceptions, we gagged and spat. No way this is what people drink at parties. From that moment forth we decided to swear off beer indefinitely. The only pleasure derived from that bottle was watching it smash in the sewer  we disposed it in. I wouldn’t be persuaded to drink another beer until high-school.. and the successive shit-showings would follow.

Float Trip 2010

Nature beholds the treasures of the world. It bestows upon the humble man a true miraculous beauty that is one of a kind and a millions of centuries in the making. Exploring the untamed landscapes along the rivers of a remote southern Missouri town is a great way to escape the pressing responsibilities of adulthood and dense polluted cities where one works. And what better way to indulge in Earth’s glory than doing so under the influence of one of nature’s other great gifts: alcohol.

The day before the float typically starts off the same. Drinking while playing washers, setting up tents, etc. These things are really just regulatory preface to the critical tailspin that persists throughout the evening. No matter how much one tries to limit themselves the night before an early morning float, most everyone drinks too much. It is inevitable, excitement overcomes one’s will power with the anticipation of the events to come. Around dusk things really escalated.

In a very serious and genuine attempt to fully embody and respect the typical backwood’s floater, one very enthusiastic patron of America brought Ed Hardy temporary tatoos. A better testament to the respect of our forefathers and freedoms, I cannot imagine, than a temporary tatoo of a lavish stylized butterfly on the shaft of my friend’s penis. I didn’t even know that the male genitalia would take temporary tatoo’s until that day, lo and behold a little water and a firm application would result in such an awesome personification of the youth of America. Such grace. Such nationalistic fortitude. And for that I salute my close friend, his name repectively withheld for obvious reasons.

The exposing of genitalia wouldn’t stop there. Nor would the drinking. Things came to a sloppy halt near 4:30 in the morning. Not to mention the beer drinking during tent set up was more than likely to blame for the location of our sleeping space, somehow situated over jagged rocks and gravel. Have you ever tried to sleep with a pointed rock wedged up your ass, the only protection being a thin layer of tent canvas and a cotton sleeping bag covered in creek water and spilt beer? It is pretty hard. Pun. Intended. Bitch.

Wake up to a groggy stinky pile of guys in the tent, aching from dehydration and the sleeping arrangement. Seems like a few years prior sleeping on rocks wouldn’t have bothered me. And though i slept soundly through the night with the aid of whiskey, my body now contested to the merits of such a decision. The start of the float trip is always more fun when your faculties are dulled, anyhow.

The float trip itself was awesome. With 80′s music blaring we made our way down river in a fleet of sheer drunkenness. We lost an entire bag of Dorritos, which the fish helped themselves to. One lucky floater even got smacked in the face with an oar by another’s drunken alter-ego. We always start the float united, and somehow get all discombobulated and completely separated from the rest of the group. As my raft drifted away from me I ran to catch-up, cursing the people who would not slow down. I ran and ran, and grabbed giant clumps full of river weed to sling at them and finally made it back to the boat in a heap and passed out.

*Time Passes, Memory Fades*

I woke with a start as our raft came to a stop. Someone found a place to jump off, I decided in my state that it was a bad idea. I then soaked in my surroundings, quite literally. I was wedged in the back crevasse of the boat, ass deep in what appeared to be a mixture of beer, creek water, and my own urine. I stand and immediately fall out of the boat. I try to stand but the water’s current and my motor skills complete failure cause me to fall. Repeatedly. I must have looked like a new born baby giraffe, because my friends came to my rescue. Their definition of rescue is to drag my PBRlogged body through 2 feet of water as the river’s bottom tore my back apart. Of course at the time I did not protest – but later the bruises and scratches that covered my back were evidence that I probably should have. And I somehow misplaced a full sized cooler. To this day I have no idea where it floated off to. Back at the campfire people huddled around the fire, broken and exhausted. By 8 PM most people were passing out in their lawn chairs. After I helped myself to a few half cooked half frozen campfire treats, I scampered off to the tent I knew contained an air mattress and passed out. Halfway through the night, the owners of the air mattress found me, but because of the darkness thought I was someone else – so I stayed and hogged up the whole mattress.

Nature. If you were there – Please feel free to comment on this post and add anything I might have missed in my hazy drunken recollection. Bangarang!

Flashback: ‘The Ninja’ Reveals Early Signs of Poor Bowel Control

Theme parks are one of the things that make this country so great. I am a lover of all things USA, and nothing quenches my patriotic thirst like a sunny day at Six Flags. The hordes of sweaty hoosiers and their loud children, dripping wet all day from riding the ‘Tidal Wave’ leaving big wet ass spots on every ride they go on, perpetuating stereotypes in more ways than you can count on one hand. These places bring out the best in the worst.

My first recollection of Six Flags was as a young boy, perhaps the age of 9 or 10? ‘The Ninja’ was a fairly new ride, and as a naive young boy, I found myself curiously considering riding the roller coaster, if not for the mere fact that i was just tall enough to ride it. Yes, i thought. I am tall enough to ride a big kid ride.* But, as my place in line grew ever nearer to the loading area, i began to waver. Perhaps I shouldn’t ride this, father? I am nervous. (*All dialogue here is hypothetical – too old to remember any little details, please suspend your reality judgments and use your imagination. This, as is all my blogs, based on fact.)

My dad, and sole accompaniment, reassured me it would be great. Nothing to worry about. It will be fun! This is long before my recreational trust of my father had completely diminished. He would hide in my closet for hours to scare the shit out of me before i went to bed, place ketchup on his mouth and lay on the floor for my sister and I to find him when we got home from school, quietly whisper my name from under my bed as i tried to fall asleep. It got to the point where i would check to see if he was in bed before i went to sleep, but he would strategically place pillows under the cover of his bed to make it appear as though he were already asleep. Years of psychological distress would leave me to completely mistrust his reasoning.

Alas, I boarded the Ninja. Strapped in tight and shaking. I began to have panicky regret and a small outburst. My father said that I could close my eyes and he would tell me when the ride was over. So my first roller coaster experience was almost completely feeling. Except when my dad told me it was okay to open my eyes, midway through the loop-de-loop. Upside down and terrified, my body reacted the only way it knows how to deal with anxiety, and the way it would react for more than a decade to come: I shit my pants.

I didn’t even know this at the time during the ride. It was when i got off and my friends and family caught the smell. I wasn’t speaking to anyone at this point, but rather moping around in a shock induced haze with brown nuggets tumbling about in my tighty whities. The day was ruined. This is one of my first recollections of my constant battle with my digestive system, and an eerie foreshadowing into my plague of defecating miscues.

Lawrence, Kansas – Just Another Place To Get Trashed

Since my unfortunate graduation from college and forlorn full-time job, the once frequent evening out has become few and far between.  Perhaps even more depressing, my friends have been taken by the sweet scent of adulthood and scattered themselves throughout the midwest, or, in some cases, quite a bit further. This is a sad realization, especially when you can’t really afford to visit every one of them, although I would love to do so. Yet, on this rare occasion that I did commit to something – I chose Lawrence, Kansas for a weekend with a beloved friend of mine.

Now, when you read this, if anyone does still read this blog, you may ask yourself, “What does Lawrence, Kansas have to offer?” Well, let me enlighten you. Downtown Lawrence has a lovely bar called the Red Lion. The place appears to be a typical dive bar, but when the jukebox is playing ‘Surfin Bird’ by the Trashmen on repeat seven straight song choices in a row, and the free stale popcorn is the only thing keeping you sober enough to continue the game of darts without impaling someone, it takes on a whole new persona. As does the car ride home from Taco Bell when the only thing keeping you from vomiting is singing acapella fragments of any Disney song you can remember.

Saturday holds much more promise – after a short ride back to downtown Lawrence to pick up the car, it was decided that we had to see the huge Cabela’s store outside of Lawrence. Visiting Cabela’s consisted of a hungover group of guys sitting in a pontoon boat farting and commenting on what our future boats will be decked out with. A free, live animal call session? Count me in. I was so captivated by the taxidermied polar bears that I lost my group and wandered around aimlessly for a good 10 minutes like a scared lost little boy in a theme park (See soon to come blog post ‘Flashback: ‘The Ninja’ Reveals Early Signs of Poor Bowel Control’ for more on theme park fun). Hunger pangs greatly overcame our desire to shop – so we left the girls to do the shopping, and we posted up at a bar called the ‘Yard House’ – named as such for their signature yard of beer glasses. This became our hangout for the next 5-6 hours. We ate both lunch and dinner at this bar. We also managed to amass a $250.00 bar tab. Mind you, we left here around 7pm.

We migrated back to familiar territory, but since the Red Lion was at capacity, we ducked into a grosser bar with a pool table. One member of our party stood at a table by himself and started conversations with any passerby, or perhaps, himself. After a day full of drinking delicious microbrews, a tall cool PBR taste like refreshing water, but I can assure you, it does not re-hydrate you, no matter how much you feel as though it is doing so. After a 2 hour conversation on car sales, I am sufficiently shithoused, and completely convinced I would make a better salesman than Alec Baldwin himself. We went to an Lawrence, Kansas exclusive : ‘The Pita Pit’. This is probably not a Lawrence exclusive, but I had never been to a Pita Pit in my life. Since my brain was mutilated by booze at this point, my less intuitive sub-conscience took the reins, and my sub-conscience was convinced this establishment was a ‘Jimmy John’s’. So I ordered a Turkey Tom… at an explicitly named Pita restaurant. When they would not acquiesce, I ordered my second favorite sandwich, the Italian Night Club. Hold the sprouts. Finally my friends stepped in and ordered me something I don’t even recall eating.

One of the risks of marathon drinking, that is drinking without stop throughout an entire day, is you run the risk of waking drunk the next morning, or god forbid, afternoon. My Sunday was the latter of the aforementioned scenarios. This is always an excruciating situation for me, because I struggle internally with a way to best deal with still being drunk. Perhaps grab another beer, a little hair of the dog that bit you, and try to coast into a hangover. Drinking is pretty unappealing though when you wake up smelling like stale beer and you are so dehydrated that your eyes are sticking shut. The other option, I have found to be effective 50% of the time, is to try and eat something to sober you up faster.

This option was not effective this particular occasion. I downed an entire order of spinach artichoke dip at the local Applebee’s. After I sat at the table for a few minutes, I got up and rushed to the bathroom. My wonderful friends, also accompanied me, sensing my discomfort. Imagine, if you could, 3 – 4 23 year olds peering over a bathroom stall as their friend violently blew semi digested appetizer out of his mouth and nose in a noisy splash. Vomiting soon after eating is the worst time to get sick. Food just slides out of your esophagus like a giant slug comprised of booze soaked food chunks.

The vomiting didn’t stop there. I continued to burp and gargle up booze and stomach acid into grocery bags in the back seat of my own car for the majority of the 6 hour ride home. You know you are in rough shape when your gagging, spitting and vomit stench are prompting the driver to hold a bag up to his mouth to vomit while trying to simultaneously steer the car. The weekend was worth it though, and as it turns out, the city doesn’t make the fun, the people do. And the alcohol. And the recorded video of a grown man puking into a GAP bag, which has since been deleted. Find your own vomiting videos.

Always a Bachelor Partier, Never Invited to the Wedding..

This blog is about exactly what the title suggests. I have been invited to countless Bachelor parties, with no invitation to the wedding itself. I still haven’t settled on how I feel about this. On one hand, I am flattered. I hate weddings. They are usually boring, in a church, and hot stuffy uncomfortable situations. On the other hand, I love receptions. It gives me the opportunity to rub elbows with people whom typically have no idea who I am, and under the influence of alcohol. What more can you ask for?

This evening was just that. In a slap-dash, “Who else would come drink with us on a Tuesday night?” hurry-up offense, I was invited to a Bachelor party at McGurk’s in Soulard. The event was for a wise gentleman, for whom I owe some of my most memorable nights at Truman State University. I was obligated, bound to a moral code of mine something along the lines of Karma but with more whiskey, and I didn’t work until 2:30 PM the next day. No-brainer.

We show up, rounds are ordered, drinking starts. No sense detailing the start, because if you have read any of my blogs before this, they all start the same way. Buy a round. Take a shot. Buy two drinks, one whiskey, one Guinness, keep the hands balanced, etc. The bachelor himself was being brought shot upon shot. Now, the bachelor at hand is of Canadian decent, so no blame can be slung his way in terms of being unable to hold his alcohol (Age should be of consideration too.)* He was amongst a decent amount of the hockey players he used to coach, and some stragglers who got mixed up with the group by chance, myself due mostly to charming mannerisms and well-groomed nature.

Drink after drink made it’s way to our Canadian friend, and he tipped them back like a champ. The rest of the night is a puddled mess of memories, but of the most vivid, this is what I recall. Our Canadian friend was ushered on stage by the band to sing ‘Maggie Malone’ – and by sing I mean mutter incoherently and laugh. One well prepared guest even pulled up the lyrics on his iPhone, but was of no use at all because all motor functions were forfeited at this point.

Another vivid memory is the USA v. Canada drink off. Three Guinness’s a side, a race to the finish – relay style, on down the line till the last drop is gone. I had the pleasure I participating for Team USA. If it were not for the wobbly man of the evening, we would have been doomed. As I gulped down the thick beer, and slammed down my glass in shame thinking I had lost – it was noted that the bachelor had only drank 2/3′s of his beer, relinquishing his victory in shame, sorrow, and a belly full of the most filling beer known to man.

A few of us scouted a couple other bars to see if they were worth carrying the bachelor to and propping against the wall, but by the time we got to the 2nd bar we were summoned back because he was already vomiting. Between the unwavering persistence of one accomplice’s attempts to hit on the tuesday night Coug-tastic regulars and the bartender in the green striped shirt I kept calling ‘Steve’ and asking if he ‘Had to hire a dog sitter for his dog Blue while he bartended’  - our welcome was outstayed anyhow.

As people argued on whether or not to drag the comatose Canadian to the East Side, a few of us decided that Steak N’ Shake was more important. And that it was. Judging by my stomach the next day I probably had chili, but it was just textures at that point in the evening. My flovors had been dulled by the constant influx of bottom shelf whiskey. After paying for my meal and my traditional Steak N Shake dessert – a fistful of Chiclets, I was out the door. Perhaps it was my state of inebriation, my surely drunken bewildering greeting to the group of teenagers in the parking lot, or my sloppy attempts to smuggle my glass out the door under my shirt, but my perception was off. I jumped into the back seat of what appeared, at the time, to be my friend’s car.

As i sat there for a few minutes it dawned on me that my friends should already be in the car. With a more assertive eye I assessed my surroundings. Diaper bag. Baby seat. Toys. This was not the car I arrived here in. I turned in my seat to look out the back window to see my friends honking and waving from their car behind the one I was in. Aww shit. I quickly hopped out, and the kids in the parking lot belittled me, as well they should have. Drunken ignorance is not always congruent with bliss, my friends. We pulled out (lol) of the parking lot and I was unloaded at my house in a heap. Hope the wedding was lovely, your bachelor party cost me a bit of the dignity I can’t afford to lose much more of.

*To the father of every Buffalo I have ever met, I mean nothing by my quips but respect. I know you know this, but I just wanted to put it in writing for the cause.

Big brother visits Springfield, feels old, perverted.

What is a college town but a bunch of like-minded individuals hell-bent on having a good time through the over indulgence of everything fun and bad for you. I miss drinking in college bars, living in cheap disgusting Kirksville housing – terrible for living but perfect for getting messy. I miss being unemployed without a care in the world except making it to class on time after a weeknight of drinking. I missed these things so much that I took it upon myself to visit my sister whom is doing all of these same things – but in a much less drunk, casual, more studious, and Springfieldy way. I ventured to Missouri State to pursue these nostalgic feelings, and quench my insatiable lust for having drunken escapades.

This was not really the case. In fact I felt so out of place at times I wish I had never visited.* The first night was a case race, were I quite awkwardly drank beer in different rooms throughout the house. I watched drama unfold, too uncomfortable to partake. I thought I would be ushered in as a wise sage, but I was more or less shunned as a creepy older brother. 20 or so beers later, I was chugging drinks out of an empty Sour Cream and Onion Pringles can as onlookers watched horrified. My school peers would have cheered, but at this party I just received disgusted stares and furrowed questioning brows.

I don’t remember much else from that night besides trying to make conversation with people only to have them abruptly halt  mid sentence to check the text they just received. I suppose texting is a generational thing, but I think it is certainly good manners to finish your own thought in a one on one conversation as the other party sits there and watches you shift your focus from you to an unseen person sending a digital letter to you. What is more frustrating is when they laugh aloud to themselves, text back, and then completely forget that there was a real tangible, in-person conversation going on. Just… pay attention for 30 fucking seconds, I was emotionally invested in this drunken conversation about who the next Batman villains will be. Whether you were interested or not is irrelevant, humoring me with any sort of response is just good manners.

I woke up on my sister’s roommate’s floor beside my sleeping bag, towels bunched under my head. My age is inversely proportionate to the grace in which my body handles a hangover. So I half crawled half staggered into my sisters room and watched Disney movies while fighting the urge to vomit until nearly 4pm.

The next evening took place in downtown Springfield in a really stylish loft where, again, I felt out of place. I think the girls didn’t appreciate my women hair accessories – and most were underage, so going to the very appealing bar across the street was not an option. So, I sang along to the 90′s songs and drank more. Finally, one of my sister’s friends showed up at the party – and was 21! I was 10 beers deep and itching for something to do, ANYthing.

Me: “Hey! Wanna check out the bar!? Lets Go to the bar! Do you see it?! Out the window? Across the street, it is right there, wanna go? Dooyah? Dooyah?!

She obliged and we made our way down the stairs and across the street to a place called “Rokbar”. After an I.D. check and $5.00 cover we had entry. What I saw next made me gasp in excitement. The bar was surrounded by swings suspended from the ceiling. Brilliant. Swinging back and forth next to a bar was blissful. I ordered a whiskey coke. “Sorry, we don’t have soda. Only juice.” Uhh … what? No soda? Just juice? Isn’t this a damn bar? It just so happens that I am drunk enough to order a whiskey orange juice, thanks. My new friend and I decided to venture upstairs to explore the rest of the bar. Perhaps even dance a bit?

When we reached the top of the stairs the bar became quite a bit darker. A few steps in and I realized that I had made a gross miscalculation, if not the worst oversight ever. I was smack dab in the middle of a strip club. A mini-strip club to be exact, and the two of us were probably two of five white people in the entire bar. As it would turn out, there was a Bone-Thugs And Harmony concert earlier that evening. Whether or not they were present remains to be seen because my attention was drawn to the extremely uncomfortable look on my sister’s friend’s face. “I have never been to a strip club..” she said more to herself than anyone. Welll … shit. “We.. mine as well finish our drinks… I … I mean.. we paid to get in…” “Okay..” We sat there and watched the stripper flop and writhe around onstage. I occasionally made a comment about the upper body strength it would take to be a stripper, which probably just made the whole situation worse. Needless to say, we quickly left the bar. I drank a few more beers silently back in the loft, but the night had really taken a turn for the awkward, so we left, and I went back to sleep on my designated sleeping place on the floor and let the shame lull me to sleep.

* No offense to my sister, it was great catching up, as it always is, but if you read all the way through, then you undoubtedly see some of my points. The mere fact that I am trying to justify anything on this horrendously offensive blog should speak volumes on the sincerity. Also, I am sorry I farted in you closet and shut the door to trap the scent… multiple times.