A Night Out….and I’m Cranky

So this past weekend we decided that we would go out and celebrate Lauren’s new job and have dinner and a few drinks before our 11 o’clock curfew kicked in and our sitter a.ka. Mom had to go. The night started out like any other night that we happen to get lucky enough to get a sitter and get a chance to go out. I told Lauren, that my Mom would be at the house at 5:30  and we were meeting at 6 for dinner. So 5:30 rolls around and my Mom shows up and big surprise Lauren isn’t ready and is still in the bathroom. But with a little huffing and puffing on my part she wrapped up her make up quick and we were out the door.

We were supposed to meeting Dinker, Radtke, Karen, Kelly, and Stickbug aka Rachel at Parker’s in G-town. So with a little luck and a heavy foot on the gas pedal, we arrived.

Dinker was already there and waiting at the bar, so we quickly ordered a round and got to our table before the restaurant started to get packed. So far so good, I’m at the table and I have a cold beer in my hand.

  I’m drinking a Bass and I can’t remember what Dinker was drinking but it must have been good, he is giving the thumbs up, but wait he does that in every picture, so hell I don’t know if it was good or not. But I live by the motto, that there is no such thing as bad beer, there is only better beer. Dinner was good, everybody must have enjoyed it, because that was the only time our table was quiet. The bill came, we paid and we went on our merry way.

Our first stop for the night was Riley J’s in G-town. Now this is a great bar. Nice bar, brass handrail, nice interior, 4 or 5 pool tables in the back, good music selection and just all around good people. I apologize now, I forgot the camera when we went into Riley’s but the story is just as good. We get a few drinks and after some small talk head over the pool tables. Radtke and Dinker are shooting a good game, when in walks this old man that looks like could’ve been “Blue” from the movie Old School’s twin. This old guy had a big white shaggy beard, and a German felt hat with all of the appropriate pins and feathers. He walks down to the pool table that Radtke and Dinker are playing on, even though there are two open tables and lines up four bucks of quarters. So Dinker wins his game with Radtke and sets up to play with “Blue”, now this is when “Blue” really starts to open up. He talking to Lauren and I about how when he takes Viagara it makes everything he sees turn a shade of blue and then he made an off color joke about how a viagara got stuck in his throat and he had a stiff neck for four hours. Not bad for an old guy, right? So immediately “Blue” was the long lost kooky Grandpa of our little group. As the night goes on, he’s telling Dinker stories about how his brother served with Elvis in the military and he saw a movie in Paris and just general good “old timer” stories. It was really quite interesting for me and the other guys, but after a couple games of pool the girls had lost interest and were ready to bounce. So bid farewell to “Blue” and were on our way down to Gallagher’s Pub.

Now here is where my crankiness starts, I really dislike Gallagher’s Pub, it isn’t a bad bar it is just full of skeevy old guys and skanks, then pepper in some grade A fake tough guys and douche bags and that’s the clientele of Gag’s. But the girls all seem to love it, and because The Sideshow Bar wasn’t open yet I really had nowhere to go. So we go in and get a drink and it is full of the people I listed above.

 

As you can tell from my “smile” I am every so pleased to be there and my crankiness level is climbing. Some bearded douchebag at the bar is mean mugging me all night and I know I could fold him like a cheap suit, but I know that I have to play nice so I just get irritated and try to mind my business.

AHHHHHHH, finally its 10 and The Sideshow opens.

The Sideshow is my favorite bar and one of my oldest haunts. It is a small college town Mom and Pop run bar. It has a great atmosphere, cheap beers, a great old pool table and a jukebox straight from the 70’s. Finally, I feel at home. The night goes on with another drink and another game of pool, before I get the nod to go down into the basement to see Gary, one of the owner’s “art”. Now this is a huge deal, Gary is a very eccentric individual with a macabre sense of humor and his art shows it. So Radtke and I get the invite to check out some of his latest creations and all I can say is WOW that is some weird shit, now to protect Gary’s privacy all I’ll say is I saw a menagerie of “Voodoo Quadriped Pelvises” and intricate weldings, and other interesting things made of everything from walnut shells to mirror. But I will say that some of the funny lines I heard Gary say were as follows:

“If you are every working in umbrella, once you cut one strut it all goes to shit.”

“That was back in the phase where I was fascinated by how much snail shells look like a ram’s horns.”

and “Sinister”

Then to make matters even creepier than being in the basement, some goofball just walks down uninvited and tries to butt his way into the conversation. This is how the conversation unfolded:

Weirdo: “Have you guys every been metal detecting?”

Gary, Radtke, Me: “No”

Weirdo: “What would you say if you were out metal detecting and you found a box of bones in an indian burial ground?”

Radtke: “So there’s probably no skull right, so you don’t know what kind of bones they are right?”

Weirdo: “Right, right”

Radtke: “Well what kind of box were they found in?”

Weirdo: “A plastic box”

Gary: “ How did a metal detector find a plastic box of bones?”

Weirdo: “Ahhhh, there was a single bullet underneath the box”

Gary: “Sinister”

Weirdo: “No that’s fate”

It was at that point I was called back upstairs and I thanked my lucky stars that I could get the hell away from that goofball before the indian bones in the plastic box told him to shoot me with the bullet that was under the box.

Yes, folks that how the night ended. Lauren and I said our goodbyes and headed for home. I was no longer cranky, just thankful to be alive lol.

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