Booze:

I have had a lot of fun on the drink.  I have also had some horrible experiences.  I think that this is true for just about anyone who has ever tried alcohol.   I don’t drink much anymore.  But when I do, I push the envelope.  Having a couple of social drinks just seems like a complete waste of time to me.   I don’t like alcohol that much, so I guess I just assume, that if I am drinking, I minus well get as much in as I can.  Here are a few interesting scenarios that have occurred in my life, that could only have happened with the help of mass amounts of booze. 

The Halloween incident:   A few Halloween’s ago, I dressed up as batman.  A slightly plump, 5’9 Batman, with glasses, but I wore it well.  I then went to the bar with several of my friends.  The night was going great; I had been drinking my favorite cocktail, (Bombay Sapphire and tonic) vigorously for several hours.  It was a laugh a minute kind of evening, everyone was all smiles.  Then it happened, some other short, fat man, entered the bar wearing a Superman costume.   Immediately, I felt as though it was my responsibility to put an end to the Superman vs. Batman rivalry.  

I remember leaning into my group of friends and yelling “This shit ends tonight”!!   I must have said this with some level of seriousness as my friends immediately looked concerned about what was going to happen next.   But it was too late.  I lowered my batman mask and proceeded to tackle the man in the Superman suit.   I don’t think Superman had been drinking nearly as much as I had, as he didn’t really fight back.  I think he was so shocked about what was happening that he couldn’t figure out what to do.  

The bar immediately erupted into cheers as people began cheering for whichever super hero they liked better.  The fun was short lived as we both were dragged out of the bar by the bouncers and physically thrown onto the sidewalk.   Who knew, Superman and Batman could be so easily disposed of by a couple of bouncers. 

The Fence Story:  This is a story I will not be able to tell my grandchildren without laughing my ass off.  Me and my good buddy Dan went out to some bars in the Warehouse District Neighborhood of Cleveland Ohio.  At the time, he lived on the West Bank of the Flats in Cleveland.   This is kind of a hike from the Warehouse District.  We closed down a popular hotspot known as the Blind Pig.   Both of us were absolutely cocked. 

Now, at this point, what we should have done was take a cab back to his place on the West Bank.   But Dan wanted to walk and save the 15 dollars.  Had he known what was about to happen, he would have paid triple. 

We get about a quarter of the way back to his place and I, for some insane reason, announce that “I know a shortcut”.  For the life of me I cannot remember where I got this idea as I had never made this particular walk before.  I had never made any sort of a walk like this anywhere.  Certainly not in this state of mind.  But Dan went along with it without much of an argument. 

After a couple minute stumble through an enormous parking lot, we came to a fence.  This fence was 12 feet high with barbed wire on top of it. On the other side, it was woods, which we couldn’t see through, because it was about 2 in the morning.  I convinced Dan, that if we could just climb over this fence, we would be at his apartment in no time.   In years since, I have often looked at this area on Google Maps and always laugh, because this fence is absolutely nowhere near where Dan’s apartment was. 

So I climb the fence first, hammered and laughing as I reach the top.  I tried to straddle the barbed wire but my pants got caught and it tore a gash in my pant leg clear down from my inseam to my knee.  I then fell over the top of the fence, down 12 feet onto the dirtiest, litter covered, wooded hill, imaginable.  Dan was next.  And in a near impossible turn of events, Dan also got his pants caught on the top of the fence and fell down the hill.  So there we were the two of us, with matching slits in our pants, drunk, filthy, bleeding and tired.  But we were over the fence, nothing could stop us now.

At this point, we walked down the hill and through the patch of woods, the entire time thinking we would emerge on the other side and be right at Dan’s apartment complex.  To our dismay, the wooded area ended at the edge of an 80 foot, man-made, drop off into another parking lot.  There was no way down, no ladder, no stairs, and nowhere else to go but back the way we came…..  back over the fence.

At this point, we are blaming each other for this predicament, but in hindsight, it was mostly my fault.  Again, I went first over the fence.   I couldn’t concentrate as Dan was laughing his ass off and I was too.  My other leg got caught on the barbed wire and ripped an identical gash into my other pant leg.  In aggravation, I attempted to just leap down to the parking lot.  Unfortunately a guard rail got in the way of my balls and I crotched myself on it.  To this day, nothing has ever been more painful.   I remember laying on the ground, bloody, my pants destroyed, covered in dirt and filth, having just crotched myself on a guard rail, holding back tears of pain while Dan nearly choked to death laughing.  Dan’s laughter was short lived as he had gotten the idea that he could somehow avoid climbing back over the fence and squeeze under it instead.  Unfortunately Dan was unable to hold the fence up high enough and it snapped back onto his forehead, immediately creating a bloody gash in the middle of his head. 

At long last, we were both on the other side, back to where we started.  We went to the nearest bar to try to clean ourselves up and the bouncer looked at us like we had three heads.  I told him that we got hit by a bus and needed to use his bathroom.  And he believed us.  At that point, we were so dirty and bloody and tattered that someone actually believed that we had been hit by a bus!  After a quick cleanup in the restroom, we walked the rest of the way back to Dan’s and passed out.

Late for work:  One evening after work, myself and some of my colleagues went out for “a few beers” at the bar across the street from my job.   About a dozen beers later, at around 2:30 in the morning, I was in no condition to drive home.   I managed to stumble back across the street to my car which was parked right in front of the door of my job.  I got into the passenger seat, propped it all the way back, and passed out.  After all I had to be back in work in about 6 hours at 9 am. 

I woke up at around 11:30 in the morning, in the passenger seat of my own car, covered in sweat, with the sun beating down on me, still parked right in front of my office.  At some point throughout the night, I had taken my shirt off and was passed out, bare chest, in plain view of all of my coworkers as they arrived into work.  Worse off, I had to wander into work, 2 and half hours late, unable to make any sort of excuses for myself.  After all, how could I lie to my boss when he was able to see me passed out in my car, half naked at 11:30 in the morning on a Tuesday? 

Lube Stop Jacket Guy:   I used to spend a lot of time at what can be referred to as “Redneck bars”.  One thing I have learned since is that rednecks are not to be messed with.  Like most things in my life I learned this lesson the hard way. 

Me and about 3 of my friends found ourselves in some disgusting backwoods dive one evening and for whatever reason were already fairly drunk when we arrived.  About an hour and about 5 shots later I notice a man sitting by himself at the corner of the bar, wearing a bright yellow Pennzoil Lube Stop jacket.   The drunken idiot part of my brain informed me to immediately get up and give this man shit about it.  So I walked over behind him and began singling the Lube Stop….  Penz….Oil jingle into his ear.  This man was not having any part of this because without a moment’s hesitation he turned around and punched me in the face.  To this day, I have never been hit so hard.  I’ve been in serious car crashes that weren’t nearly as debilitating as this strike.   I remember making some sort of a sound that resembled that of a goose getting run over by a golf cart.  I then flew back against the wall behind me and lost consciousness for about eight seconds. 

When I came to, the man in the Lube Stop Jacket had proceeded to also punch my best friend in the face and was already working on another friend of mine. 

When it was all said and done, this man had basically kicked all four of our asses.  I guess it was just not a good day to make fun of that guy. 

Interestingly enough, we all got thrown out of the bar and he got to stay. 

Gyros anyone?  Myself and the aforementioned Dan were again shitfaced somewhere in Cleveland.  Around 1 in the morning, we decided to take a taxi back to a bar closer to his place.  Prior to entering the taxi, we went to a late night gyro stand and purchased a couple of Gyros to eat on the way. 

These particular gyros were not good.   We both took a couple of bites and were done with them.  Now, what we should have done was pitch them out the window or hold onto them until we found a garbage can.  But instead we shoved them into the taxi driver’s backseat pockets, those things where you generally put magazines, not messy food items. 

We arrived at our bar and got out and paid the driver.  He immediately noticed that we no longer had our gyros or any of the garbage that went along with them.  He then, very quickly figured out what we had done.  Dan and I stood there and laughed for a minute, thinking he would just be mad then go away.  Instead the cab driver pulled out a knife and proceeded to chase us about two blocks through the flats. 

Finally we lost him and had to come to grips with the fact that there is a taxi driver, somewhere out there, with a knife, who meant to kill us.  We went to a strip club. 

Sadly, this but a mere snapshot of the drunken tales that I could mention here.  More to come.