Ceci N'est Pas Une Pub Crawl

9:30 PM

In bed, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. The little GiR icon on my screen starts bouncing. It's Fancy, at my front door, messaging me from his iPhone. He's managed to dump Devin Danger off on some unsuspecting ball of estrogen, and wants to go out. I call Sonny, who works at PT's. Sonny is asleep, and works at the PT's on Water and Boulder Highway at midnight. I express concern, because Water is way out in Henderson, where nobody lives and the zombies rise up at night in search of Pilsner.

9:45 PM

Calling around frantically for somebody - anybody - to go out drinking with us. I briefly consider each of my friends, then my wife's church friends, then my wife's church friends' parents, then her parents, then my mother. Fancy informs me that Joolz is spent from the night before. He looks panicked as he realizes that the inability to form a drinking party is the first sign of senility.

9:50 PM

In desperation, Fancy suggests we go play the ponies, since it's the cheapest way to drown yourself in high-grade alcohol. I explain to my puzzled wife what an electronic horse racing machine is. She seems to think it's the exact same thing as the kids' carnival game at the Excalibur. I patiently explain that a group of drunken adults are unlikely to play a gambling game in order to win a plastic viking hat. The entire point, the summation of the experience (if you will), is in the drinking, since playing the ponies is equivalent to paying 25c per rum-and-coke.

10:05 PM

Frazzled, desperate, and watching his youth fade away like those guys who drank from the wrong cups in Indiana Jones And The Jesus Cup Thing, Fancy orders me to get in the car so we can head to the Inn Zone. There is an extremely bad cover band there. They look like overaged metalheads, except they're playing Georgia Sattelites covers. We charge the bar to begin our pathetic pub crawl. Fancy goes for rum and coke; I sip a shot of Ouzo. I remember that I have already started this afternoon off with about three glasses of gin and orange juice. Fancy is whispering a mantra to himself.

10:25 PM

The Inn Zone sucks. It's mostly a place for extremely mannish women to flock together and congregate. It's impossible not to meet the potential love of your life at the Inn Zone, as long as you don't have an aversion to thoroughbreds. Looking at the shuffleboard table is reminiscent of the starting line at the Kentucky Derby. Fancy and I weigh our options, and flee to the PT's across the street. Sonny is still probably not even awake.

10:30 PM

PT's is dead. A somber pair play pool upstairs; there are a smattering of couples sitting around the bar; the bartender is only four days employed. We decide on Newcastle. We talk about drugs. When the gin cries out from my stomach, I suavely wander out to vomit in the parking lot. Fancy finishes my beer.

10:50 PM

The New York Bar & Grill has reached the point where only the regulars are seated at the bar. Two couples are playing eight-ball. I wonder aloud if any of them are attractive. None of them are. The bartender is a short, round woman from the South. She's got the tough streak that so many Southern women have when they run bars, or so I assume from watching Gunsmoke. She has a truly frightening pair of breasts, the kind that make you remember dreams of suffocation. I order a rum and coke simply because I can handle hard alcohol far easier than beer. Miraculously, I'm sobering up, but am starting to get bored. Steve orders one beer, then another. The bartender warns us that we need to go out the back door, since there's apparently a crazy guy at the front door.

Things are looking up. A crazy guy means I could potentially get into a fight. When we're ready to leave, we head out the back door, then wander around to the front, since that's where we parked anyways.

An old guy comes out of the entry chamber, presumably after being denied entry. He calls the bartender a rude name under his breath. He isn't worth getting in a fight over. Fancy drops me off at home, then heads off to cry.