One more Saturday night…

“I went down to the mountain, I was drinking some wine, looked up in the heavens lord I saw a mighty sign, written fire across the heaven, plain as black and white; get prepared, there’s going to be a party tonight”

-The Grateful Dead

One more Saturday night.  I was going to take the entire weekend off from going out, after last weekends bender in Erie.  I made it through Friday night, helping the Asians move some stuff in from Jersey.  Saturday morning came and went without incident, as i had to work, then I finally figured out how to get the outside water faucet to work so that i could wash my car.  Saturday afternoon went as planned, and I took my friend and his baby to the airport.  Not wanting to be at home, and most of my other friends being out of town, I decided to watch the hockey game in West Chester, with my friend Richard.  So much for taking it easy.  Here is a rundown of our man-date:

18:00-  I arrive in West Chester.  Richard isn’t answering his phone, and I don’t know where he lives exactly.  I start to get angry.

18:15-  After driving around for 15 minutes, i find a parking spot in downtown West Chester.  Still no answer from Richard.  I continue to get angry.

18:25- Richard finally calls back.  He fell asleep on his couch watching the LOGO channel.  I get his address and proceed to his house.  He gives me a bottle of his own home brew as an act of penance.  All is forgiven.

19:00-  We leave Richards apartment for the bar.  We are walking, and it is about a mile and a half.  This will be important later. 

19:30-  We get to the bar and order food.  I order the buffalo chicken hoagie, he orders the Italian pork hoagie.  I take one bite out of my sandwich and get buffalo sauce on my shirt.  “I’m totally getting laid tonight”, I think to myself. 

20:05-  We get our check.  I realize that the matches that I had taken from his apartment are from Woodys, a local gay bar.  The waitress definitely thought we were a couple of pole smokers.  I don’t want to know how Richard got those matches.

20:06-  All four TV’s in the bar are tuned to the Phillys game.  We leave on a quest to find somewhere with the hockey game on. 

20:10-  After checking in a couple of bars with no luck, we end up at Iron Hill because the bartender said they would be showing the hockey game.  We order drinks.

20:25- The hockey game has started.  The Pens are hanging in there.  We continue drinking.

20:35-  A woman and her date sit to the right of us at the bar.  Total word count for their conversation was:  Annoying Blond Woman- 3,052,174  Dude who must have been at least 90% deaf to tolerate all that yapping- 9.  I move my seat to the other side of Richard at the bar, further away from them.  I am only 30% deaf, not nearly enough for that situation.

20:45-  A couple of cougars, probably about 40 years old, walk into the bar.  Both blond, both were well dressed and well spoken.  There is one empty seat to the right of us, and one to the left.  They order their drinks, and me, being the gentleman that I am, ask them if they would like us to slide down a seat so that they could both sit down at the bar together, next to Richard and I.  They thought that was the sweetest thing in the world, and the bar was kind of dark so I was pretty sure that they didn’t see my buffalo chicken sandwich stain on my shirt.  There may be hope.  Richard glanced at me as if to say, “What the fuck are you doing?”.  He then turned to the ladies and said, “Of course, ladies, please… have a seat.”  He gets up, and glances me a smirk.  We change seats and the ladies sit down.  Rich leans over and whispers to me, ” I just farted in her chair and it smell so bad”.  I immediately smell rotten eggs and cabbage, and have to cover my face.  The women didn’t seem very amused.  I have never seen anyone drink a glass of wine that quickly in my life, and just like that, the cougars were gone.  Oh well, the night was still young.

21:30-  The Pens are now losing and playing like shit.  I continue drinking, at a quicker pace this time. 

22:00-  I am now drinking rum at a furious pace.  The Pens are losing, bad.

22:20-  The Pens give up four goals, and the game is over.  I order consolation shots of whiskey.  The bartenders seem to be amused with my misery.

23:00-  We get the check.  $46.  Pretty cheap considering both of us were on this tab and we had both been drinking at an Irishman’s pace.  We probably had 7 or 8 drinks each.  I reach for my tab, and the other bartender comes and sweeps up the tab and my card from the bar before i could grab it.  “That’s weird”, I think to myself.  “Maybe they forgot to put something on.”  The second bartender punches some numbers into the little bar tending computer, and brings me back my check and my card.  The new bill was $24.  Hell yeah.  I don’t know what we did, but the bartender liked us.  Oh God, I hope I didn’t leave those Woody’s matches sitting out on the bar…

23:30-  We arrive at Jake’s Bar.  Nothing really to report here, except that they have 50 cent drafts, every day, and that they sell $3.00 6-packs of PBR pounders.  Obviously, as soon as we saw this, we both demanded our own 6-pack.  The bartender noted that they usually sell out of those around 7pm, because the hobo’s come in early and buy them all up.  MMMmmm…. Hobo beer…  I will beat them to it next time.

 00:15- We leave Jakes and decide to go to one more bar before going home for the night.  We walked back into town and I see a bar on the other side of the street.  Seems like a dive, but there was music coming out of it, so it sounded like the people were having a good time.  We walk in to this bar, and it was kind of like the cliche scene in a movie when something really out of place happens, and the record player screeches to a hault, and everyone turns and looks at you.  Richard and I were the only two white guys in the whole place, and excluding the bartender, we were probably 30 years younger than anyone there.  We saddle up at the bar, order our drinks, and everyone goes about their business. 

00:40-  I decide that I am going to be a ‘juke box hero’, and put a couple of Spinners songs on.  I am an immediate crowd hit.

00:50-  Not to be outdone, Richard steps up to the juke box and plays the Temptations and Jimi Hendrix’s Machine Gun.  Now everyone loves the two white guys.

01:15-  The old man sitting next to me tries to explain to me some deep racial harmony philosophy that he has involving tire tracks and human feet.  I don’t understand, but I pretend that I do.  I buy him a glass of rum.  I am now his favorite.

01:30-  A woman comes into the bar and sits next to us.  She says that it is her daughters 38th birthday today.  I told her she was full of shit, that she couldn’t have been more than 40 or so.  She then tells me, “I had her when I was 14, I’m 52”.  Alrighty then… Then I find out, that the old man with no teeth sitting two seats down from me was her ex-brother in law, whatever that means.  This old man couldn’t really talk, but he just had that raspy laugh that a 70 year old black man with no teeth has.  I felt like we were friends.

02:05- We ordered our last round of drinks and are shooting the shit with everyone.  Another white guy walks in, presumably a West Chester University frat guy.  He orders a beer and is denied service because it is after 2am.  He argues for a moment and then leaves.  I then turn to the bartender and say, “My people can be so stupid”.  She laughs hysterically.  I have had too much to drink. 

02:10-  We say our goodbyes to our new friends, and i begin to look for a cab.  Richard, in all his drunken wisdom, refuses to get a cab, and wants to walk home.  I argue that I am fat and drunk and wearing flip flops, but this has no effect.  We begin walking home. 

02:50-  I begin to sense that we are lost.  Richard insists that he knows exactly where we are going.

03:00-  We walk into a caul du sac.  Richard does not live in a caul du sac.  I am furious. 

03:05-  We are backtracking when a police car pulls up to us and asks us what we are doing.  I explain to the officer that my friend is a dumb ass and got us lost.  The police officer gives us directions home.  He then says to be on the lookout for a 19 year old girl who was reported wondering around the neighborhood trying to break into her parents house.  I just finished watching the 3rd season of The Wire, so I was up for the challenge.

03:20-  I am convinced that we are lost again.  Richard, again, insists that he knows where we are going.  Richard then stops, points across the street and says, “Look, a dude with a flashlight, maybe he knows where we are”. 

03:21-  The same police officer from before, shines his flashlight on Richard, and explains the directions to him again.  I tell the police officer that we had not seen his perp yet, but that we were keeping a close eye out.  I thought about asking the officer if they were working on the judges consent to get a wire tap up on the suspects cell phone.  I decided to keep my detective work to myself. 

03:50-  We finally find Richards apartment.  I vow never to come back to West Chester again, unless someone is driving, or I am wearing sneakers.