Yosemite Sam and the Beer Willy

Characters:

• Phx
• Tom
• Clingon: Tom’s friend, and off and on co-worker. Big scheming up-and-coming businessman. 20 yrs old.
• Cal: Tom’s supervisor. 37, single, cool guy. Moving east in a week.
• Kim: Korean co-worker of Tom’s. In his late 20s, friendly, polite.
• Mustang: Late 20s coworker. Cute, single, recently bought a silver mid-90s mustang. I’ve hung out with him once before.
• Pita: pain in the ass ex-coworker of Tom’s. Older guy, married, bit of a wet blanket.

After work on Friday, I met Tom, as arranged, at Buds, a local pub. It’s in an old car garage, but the way they’ve done it up is very relaxed, comfy and cool. There is a big cut out of Yosemite Sam on the ceiling, flipping everyone the bird. The garage bay windows roll up in the warmer weather and they have a large patio area.

Tom called me over to his table, and everyone but Pita was already there. I hadn’t even sat down when his supervisor, Cal, asked me what I was having to drink. I think they were already on their third pitcher of beer when I arrived.

My stomach was still feeling queasy from the night before, and frankly I can’t stand beer, so I had a double Texas iced tea. Apparently they have 5 different alcohols in them. And I am a bloody lightweight, because I was already feeling a little done as I worked my way through that first drink.

Pita showed up before I was done with it, and Cal ordered another round. That brought another pitcher of beer and another iced tea for me.

The 3 ½ to 4 hours we were there passed quickly. Clingon kept leaving the table every time his phone rang, and that was getting on everyone’s nerves. Then he got in a bad mood because we were ragging on him for leaving and he wasn’t drunk. In a drunken stupid attempt to cheer him up, I think I kissed him on the cheek twice, with everyone cheering me on. Pita then pointed to his cheek and said he was next. I went to the bathroom instead.

There I found a girl trying to put on lipstick. She dropped the cap in the garbage, and, after telling me it was a cheap lipstick she didn’t like, she proceeded to rifle through the garbage looking for it. Eew.

I was sitting at the head of the table, with the guys three on each side, and when Clingon left for the fourth time to take a phone call, I took his seat in the middle on one side, in between Kim and Tom. Somehow this lead to all the beer glasses and huge plate of nachos being cleared to make way for an arm wrestle.

Between me and Cal.

Riiiiight…. I held my own for the first 15 seconds, but arm wrestles are harder on the elbow, I think, than they are on the arm. Then Kim wanted to arm wrestle me as well, and I held my own for a bit on that one too, releasing when my elbow started to ache. Yeah, I know, I’m a wimp.

We stayed at Buds till about 8 p.m. and then they all decided to hit another pub. At this point I became the guardian of Kim, who was passing out beside me.

We ended up at a Maritimes pub I’d been to a few times before with Tom. The first time I’d gone there, Tom spilt a pint of beer down the front of me and we swapped shirts right in the middle of the place. I had another iced tea (I wonder if those count as frou frou drinks…) and they downed another couple pitchers of beer

A few mouthfuls through my drink, I had to go pee yet again, as we often do when drinking too much. Unfortunately, the bathrooms in this pub were at the bottom of a spiralish staircase. Ugh.

When I came out of my stall, there was a big, obviously drunk guy washing his hands at the sink and gazing blurrily into the mirror. So I said, Um, either you are in the wrong bathroom, or I am.

He said, Oh It’s probably me.

All right.

I washed my hands, and on some gross instinct, peered into the stall he had used. Sure enough, he’d left a nice pile of crap and toilet paper in the toilet. He made to leave the bathroom, so before he got by me, I said, Um, shouldn’t you flush?

I did.

Oh.

Tom and Clingon were right outside the bathroom, so I relayed the story: That guy left a huge crap in one of the toilets!

They approached him. Dude, flush, man.

I piped in, Yeah, flush for all the hot chicks up there.

I did.

Really? Let’s check.

He stumbled back into the bathroom, peered in the stall.

Oh… Flush.

When I got back to the table, Cal gave me a beer willy. Yeeuck. But I got him back with a genuine wet willy. Hehehe.

After the two pitchers of beer, the guys decided they wanted to go to the Cecil. I was occupied with keeping Kim on the sidewalk and on his feet, so I didn’t really pay attention to where we were going. I could feel myself starting to sober up, and I knew I’d have to drive Tom and probably Kim home. I knew I’d sober up quicker if we were walking, so I was happy to follow.

Until we were standing in front of the Cecil—a cheap strip club.

I declined to enter, and the guys were actually pretty good about it (they went in after Tom and Kim and I left). Since Kim and Tom were both pretty far gone, we walked back to the cars that were all parked by Buds, and said our goodbyes.

Clingon was in a bad mood again, and threw Cal’s hard hat at him, which almost provoked a fight. Then Cal tried a Dukes of Hazard roll over Pita’s car and dented in the hood.

Tom had to give me directions for getting to Kim’s building, and taking directions from a drunk guy was a really dumb idea. I’m lucky the traffic was pretty light.

When we got to Kim’s apartment, we couldn’t wake him up long enough for him to tell us his apartment number, and we couldn’t find his cell phone on him or anything. Tom stayed with Kim, who was propped up at the front of the building and I went back to the car to search for anything that Kim might have left there that would help us get him into his building.

When I emerged from the car two minutes later, they were gone. I figured they’d gone up to the building and Tom hadn’t told me. Fuming, I waited in the car for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes… where was he?

Then I saw them both walking up the driveway from the street. Apparently Kim had started walking away from his building, and then running, and Tom had to hop bushes to keep up with him. Kim tried to force his way into a pool door and then into another building all together.

Tom tracked him down and found his cell phone on him. He called Kim’s wife, and they got into the building and got Kim safely home.

Tom and I drove home without incident and I went straight to bed. I heard the ticking of Tom’s keyboard and figured he was checking his email or something. After about 10 minutes I didn’t hear it anymore, and he wasn’t in bed. Knowing he can fall asleep anywhere when he’s drunk (including while leaning against the kitchen counter) I went out to see what was up. He’d fallen asleep at his desk.

I woke him up and tried to pull him to bed, but he protested, saying he had to check his email. I told him he could check it in the morning, and he finally came to bed. (Yes, I felt like a mom.)

He fell asleep in under 10 seconds and started snoring. I can sleep with him snoring if I’m asleep before he falls asleep, but not after. I woke him up and asked him to lie on his side (this usually relieves the snoring), which he took to mean his side of the bed, so he moved over to the very edge of his side of the bed. I told him to lie on his ribs, and he rolled over. He fell asleep in well under 10 seconds again and started snoring.

I gave up and slept on the futon.