Intoxicating Sobriety, Part the First

Last Friday, tentative plans were set in motion to get people from the workgroup together to go hang out. A night of drinking and mild debauchery. Hopefully nothing as stunning as the cigar run from the week prior. However, the plans were not formalized. On the end, meself, E.B., J.T., and R.B. would head out to a pool (billiards) hall in D.C., while J.G. would first head home, then meet us there.

This was where I gave V.M. a heads up.

It took us a long time to get going, and when we finally did, we altered the plans to gun it to the restaurant across the street. However, J.G. called us from the pool hall. He'd basically stopped at home for five minutes, then headed straight there.

New plans: J.T. drives to the metro stop closest to his place, while I drive E.B. and R.B. to the metro nearest work. This had the bonus of me being able to provide at least some driving assistance for them if (when) they elected to drink. Boy howdy, did R.B. elect up a storm that night.

I got to meet J.G.'s new wife, R.G. Their notable story is that engagement to marriage was all of 72 scant hours. I've been with groups of people that took 72 hours just to decide on where to eat.

At one point, R.B. shot the cue and a random billiard off the table. He immediately started chatting up the lady sitting on the stool that the billiard came to rest on. In contrast, J.T. took his beers directly to heart, if the stomach is considered the traditional gateway to the heart. Threw those bad boys down like they were intruders on his property, and he had a beatin' stick. We work on the same project, J.T. and I, and it has progressed as though the heavens laid down thick and permanent curses upon it. It is difficult not to drink around J.T. due to the project, but somehow, I find the inner resolve to turn away the sweet, sweet beer.

From there, we migrate to another bar, next door, though somehow it took us fifteen minutes to get there, even though no one was that inebriated. I think we rounded the block, went a few blocks, doubled back, crossed a street or not, then just headed in. Sad, I know. (Side note: I have never barhopped before. It seems like we would always stay at one bar. Why did I never get in on the bar hopping action? Is this just a piece of what has been missing in my life?)

The second bar sports a gaudy leopard print couch, plastic upholstered, and similarly upholstered chairs on the second floor. This, boy and girls, is a hole in the wall. As a literary bonus for myself, behind E.B.'s head is a hole in the wall, just wide enough to fit my fingers in to the knuckle.

Here, we (the group minus me) procure multiple Miller Lite longnecks. Some discussion about the nature and authenticity of the "pilsner" label springs forth, but I do not pay attention. What the flip do I care about "pilsner?" We moan about work, coworkers, and that ever-stimulating desire to move on to bigger and better, ever present in all of us, unexpressed by so many.

I watch a woman sitting alone at the railing for over half an hour, wondering what her story is. Why would she eschew the bar and purposefully come out, just to be alone? Dog just died? Date stood her up? She was on the run from a multinational corporation hellbent on discovering the secrets that lay within her DNA? Turned out that her friend was just very late, and I was dancing down paths that didn't need dancing down.

We leave to head to a third bar which we cannot locate. I walk behind the rest, shepherd following the sheep, so as to keep track of stragglers, at this point in time R.B. The boy is now bread left in a toaster oven overlong, toasted to a crisp.

When we do locate the bar, the wait just to enter (not for a table, mind you) is thirty minutes.

Well fuck that.

We leave and contrive to meander the mild streets until we find the fourth, and final, bar of the night. And really, because I have never mastered this lesson, to start the story where the action starts, I should warn you that all you just read was semi-worthless background, and the story really begins with the next posting.