You Lucky Drunks

I don't drink. I have never been drunk, and no real desire to be drunk. That being said, there are some things I miss out on being the handsome teetotaler I am. I've compiled a list of the top things you lucky drunks get that I do not.

This looks fun.

Excuses "In my defense, I've been drinking." Being drunk is a surprisingly good excuse for many behaviors I personally have no justification for. Remember the time that guy went through that window? Or maybe I was hitting on an ugly girl, or maybe I threw a bunch of glasses and plates into the trash can at the end of the bar. No, I was sober, but somehow I'd be a little more off the hook had I had a few too many.

Variety You know what my choices are when I go to a bar? Soda or water. I guess I could have some iced tea if they have it, or one of the mixers they use for your infinitely customizable alcoholic beverages, but really it's soda or water. You have beer, wine, cocktails, alcohol straight - it's a buffet at even the crappiest of dive bars. Think of me next time you are trying to choose which IPA to drink and I'm stuck with watered down diet coke or diet coked up water.

The world is your oyster! Your oyster that will give you a hangover and new STD

Something else to be a snob about Wine snobs, beer snobs, booze snobs - all snobs. Somehow this snobbery goes over better than my early-90s hardcore music snobbery, or my book snobbery or my famous sci-fi trilogy snobbery. I'm trying to be a rootbeer snob, but this just doesn't have the same gravity as someone who only drinks Chilean wine or local microbrews.

Gin, Whiskey and Scotch Drinking these spirits would go so well with my carefully cultivated persona. Sipping a nice glass of Whiskey after a long day would give me so much more credibility over cracking open a Diet Pepsi or refilling my Britta.

Mutual drunken acceptance There's just something odd about the sober guy. I understand this, I find most non-drinkers off-putting. There are things I just can't do. Drunk girls think it's creepy when a sober guy talks to them. I get left out of some of the drunken, shared reverie.

Drinking games A lot of drinking games are stupid and embarrassing, but being the competitive guy I am, I'd love to be able to show off my throwing-a-ping-pong-ball-into-a-plastic-cup-half-full-of-warm-beer-and-floor-dirt skills. But you won't let me! I am not allowed to play if I am not drinking said floor-dirt beer. Alas.

Credibility I feel I just lack a certain credibility with no drinking tales or feats or preferences on my resume. No I don't know which wine will go well with your salmon, no I don't have the rite of passage puke story, no I have no idea how many beers I can drink. Also, as a fledgling writer, I am definitely lacking one of the key skillsets most great writers share - crippling alcoholism.

Privacy You guys never have to answer the question "why don't you drink, Tony?" No, I am not in recovery, no my parents aren't alcoholics, no I am not scared of becoming addicted, no I didn't have a bad experience, no I'm not some creepy religious zealot - I just don't drink.

I am glad I don't drink, and have no REAL desire to do so, but these are the reasons I am a little jealous of you who sip the spirits out there.

So, there you have it, drunks. Be glad you have these things, enjoy drinking just a little more for these reasons next time. Have one for me.

Truth Bombs

I don't know how people with blogs keep their friends.

The stuff that would make for legitimately interesting blog posts would certainly piss off the only people that read my blog, my close friends. Maybe I need to be widely read before I can start spilling the beans of the crazy shit that goes down in my life and my friends' lives.

I understand that bitching about strangers in a restaurant isn't exactly gripping or hilarious.
I was talking about this with my friend last night. Well, he was drunkenly yelling at me to write down the actual horrible shit I say and have been through. Writing about last night would probably make a pretty interesting entry, but I don't think writing about the drunken exploits of 33% of my readership would be a good idea moving forward.

Maybe some day I'll write about the embarrassing love triangles and cuckolding of terminally ill people and horrible shit I say about people I know - omelets and eggs and all that.

Code Blue

My mind was boggled and my ghast was flabbered twice at dinner this weekend.
To set the scene: Lovely Lady and I are feeling peckish. She's got a hankering for the mussels of the bar we go to too much.
It's dinner time on a weekend, so we suspect the place will be a shit show. It is, but we find a seat at the bar. We are seated between the loudest man who ever lived and a mind numbingly boring couple which consists of a pandering boyfriend and his fake wine snob girlfriend.

The LMWEL is like an infomercial pitch man, shitty movie dad and Dick Vitale rolled into one. He's there with what I assume is his son, just aggressively talking at him the entire time. Everything is shouted and everything is advice-y. Not good times.

The couple is just a typical lame-o couple. The girl orders some wine, the bartender brings her a glass. She tastes it. The 'tender asks her how she likes it and before rendering her verdict she needs to know what it is. He tells her it's some whatever white wine from Chile. Ooooh yeah I like it, she responds. Then she lectures her boyfriend on the quality of Chilean white wines, but the crappiness of Chilean reds. BLAH BLAH SNORE SNORE. If this girl had gotten a Franzia and he told her it was a Chilean white she would have said the same crap - she asked what it was before saying if she liked it. People are dumb. Wait, I'm supposed to show, not tell. I think I did both.

Unfortunately, enduring those two bookends was only the beginning of the human car crash.
Older couple, enter stage right. They look around for a seat, not finding one they manifest destiny eminent domain our corner of the bar. Reaching over an eating Lovely Lady to order and drink Chardonnays with ice. We have our food at this point. The slightly more manly half of the couple pulls up a chair for his blushing bride at the corner of a bar. Which, as we all know is NOT A SEAT. The place their icy goblets in such a place that whenever they want some they have to literally reach over Lovely Lady's muscular platter. Getting frustrated we dip out to make a phone call and take in the air (read: smoke a cigarette). We announce our intentions. The old fella didn't understand our announcement and asked Lovely Lady if we were leaving. She courteously responds with a definitive 'Nope.' Our 1/4 eaten food, personal effects and Nope were not enough to convince him, he turns to me - "You're NOT leaving?!?!"
No, sir, we are not (paraphrased).
At this point in the retelling I really want to admire this fellas stick-to-it-iveness. Kudos.
Within moments of getting outside we take a break from our bitching about the horrible people inside to notice he was, indeed, not dissuaded. He set up camp in Lovely Lady's seat. Baffling. Creepy, shitty, rude old dude is now talking and leaning and carrying on all over our dinners.
We come back in, he gets up, makes some corny joke and goes back to leaning on Lovely Lady's chair. We couldn't believe it. Lovely Lady was too creeped/grossed to finish her meal. We necessarily switched to drinking. Well, she did.

Those three sets of insanity finally made their way out and we joked and laughed with the bartenders at the sheer craziness that our night had been to this point. 'People these days...' and all that.

Then came in some younger couples. Mid 30s. The last couple to arrive comes in toting a baby in a baby carrier thing. Great, we'll have to deal with a shrieking baby. So they come in, great their friends and blow my mind. They plop their baby down - ON THE BAR. Baby on the bar. Where it stayed for the next hour and half while the parents joked and drank with their friends. Baby on the bar.
I of course texted my friends about the craziness going down. Funny responses: 'Body shots!' and the command 'Spin it!'

I am glad I am not horrified, but amused. People are crazy, rude and self centered. The least we can do is laugh at them. Not our place to straighten em out, but to laugh at them in the comfort of out-of-earshot and blogs.