Drinking Till 7:00 A.M.

I learned an important lesson this weekend: going to the bar at 10:00 on a Friday will throw off your whole weekend.

After work on Friday I sat down and watched an hour of TV. I haven’t been keeping up with my favorite MTV shows like I used to and they had two episodes of The Inferno 3 that I hadn’t seen before on. Once those were over I worked up the energy to go downstairs and lift weights. Normally I don’t mind lifting weights and actually enjoy it to some extent, but Friday was a arm and leg day. Now, you would think most guys would love doing curls (for the girls) and tricep extensions but I’d rather do big body parts like chest, back, and shoulders. And try doing squats after having two knee surgeries and a tib/fib compound fracture – not an easy task.

Anyway, I got downstairs and turned on the TV. The first thing that came on was Men In Black II and of course I like Will Smith movies so I started watching it. (And just for the record, even though Will Smith is black, he just doesn’t do the thing for me. I like dark-skinned women, not dark-skinned men.) The only problem with lifting weights while you are watching a movie is that after a while you are watching a movie while you are lifting weights. I found myself timing my sets in coordination with commercials and slow parts in the movie. This made for a very long workout which isn’t a totally bad thing; if the movie hadn’t been on I would have quit much sooner but I decided to stick it out to the end doing an extra set of squats or ab workout. By then it was 9:00. From 9:00 to 9:45 I folded laundry while the last episode of Celebrity Fit Club was on (Dustin Diamond is a douche bag). Then I showered and walked to the bar.

Bars close at 2:30 in the morning in Milwaukee. This left me with only 4.5 hours in which I planned on getting fucked up. For me, getting “fucked up” on a Friday is not getting “fucked up,” but more like getting “FUCKED UP!!!” You have to remember that my cheap ass refuses to pay $3 for a shot when you can get 48 ounces of beer for $5. So there I was trying to pound down all the beer I possibly could in 4.5 hours. And guess what? 2:30 came around and your’s truly was still pretty much straight, straight enough to still be winning games of pool. The situation just needed a little help.

A little help in the form of Roundy’s Vodka!!! I walked across the street to the gas station and got two bottles of ruby red grapefruit juice. Grapefruit juice is pretty strong and covered the vodka flavor with ease. That is until I realized that I couldn’t taste the vodka and started mixing it in a 50/50 manner. Oh, who am I kidding, it was 75/25 vodka/juice. I sat on the deck with my cigarettes and vodka till 7:00 in the morning. The birds were chirping when I made it to bed.

I had the whole weekend planned out. I was going to paint my room and possibly clean a little. I mean fuck, my bed is in my living room. I need to get that bedroom done. And I was going to start on it on Saturday when…

2:00 the doorbell rang. It was Elmer from down the street. There I was standing in the doorway, hair standing straight up as I had just been woken up by my neighbor who wanted to start partying when I could still smell and even taste the vodka from 7:00 in the morning. Even though it sounds like I’m complaining a little, in the back of my mind I wasn’t. I knew that if I was going to start drinking at 2:00 I most certainly would not be doing any work at all that day. And it was a gorgeous day; why spend it stuck inside sweating while you’re painting? So we had some beers. Elmer gave the Renter $20 to get beer and something else from the store. After a while we made it over to Elmer’s house where his kids were grilling brats and burgers. Everything was going great, nice weather, good company, good food, beer. But then something caught my eye. The beer can was different from what I was accustomed to. It turns out the Renter bought Milwaukee’s Best Light Ice and not just the regular stuff. I drink Milwaukee’s Best Light because that’s what it is, light. You can pound can after can without getting horribly drunk and it’s kind of watered down so it goes down easily. I was on number six by the time I notice the “Ice” on the label. That, combined with the six regular Lights that I drank at my house, left me tippy-toeing pretty damn close to the edge. Elmer suggested showering (not together) and going up to the bar to watch the Brewer’s game. I stumbled home.

I didn’t make it to the shower. I flopped face down on my newly convenient bed in the middle of the living room. I woke up to the doorbell ringing (for the second time). Elmer convinced to me take a shower and I reluctantly did. We had another beer or two on the deck and then a couple vodka cranberries which probably had two shots in each. Walking up to the bar I felt fine. I didn’t have any problems following Elmer and the Renter (although I might have gotten lost if I wasn’t following them). But then, walking in the door I heard, “Hi, Renter! Hi, Elmer! Hi… oh my God!” I guess I must have looked pretty fucked up because that was the reaction lawyer girl gave me. I mumbled something and sat in between the Renter and Elmer. The bartender made her way over. The Renter got her usual water, Elmer got his usual Miller High Life, and me? An order of chicken tenders and some onion rings, please. I did not drink at the bar on Saturday night. While I did watch the game I don’t remember anything about it. I ate my food, paid the bill and walked out the door. It was 8:30.

So, if I hadn’t gotten to the bar at 10:00 on Friday I wouldn’t have stayed up till 7:00 am drinking on Saturday and wouldn’t still have been loaded when the neighbor came over at 2:00 and would have faired much better than I did on Saturday night. Now I know. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. Or at least test it out sometime. Watching the progression from dark to light and hearing the birds chirp while you’re sitting outside still drinking from the night before is a pretty fucking cool thing to experience.