During the Next 24 Days

I close on my new house in 24 days.  In the next 24 days I am going on two long weekend trips, working my ass off, being a dad, hiring two new people at work, packing and moving, inventing the cure for cancer, telling your mama hi, scratching myself and helping old ladies cross streets.  In other words, I’m going to be busy. 

Since I have to really hunker down and get some serious shit done, I am going to blow off tomorrow to go to the Rockies home opener. This entails attending two pre-game parties, actually going to the game itself and then meeting up with scores of other revelers after the game for more parties and mayhem.  Yep, I have my priorities straight.

I’m going to opening day with my pal Tom.  We can’t remember for sure, but we think the last time we went to opening day together was a couple years ago when we ended up at a nasty strip club and started walking home at 3am in a shitty neighborhood because we couldn’t get a cab.  So we stuck a thumb out at the random cars that went by every few minutes and actually got a lift from a couple crack-hoes looking for some rock.  I wish I were kidding.  Hey, we buckled up.  No we didn’t.  As I recall, we had hands on the door handles ready to pitch and roll out of there if necessary.  Tom had the 9-1-1 punched in already with his thumb resting on the send button.

The crack-hoes even said something like “What are a couple honkey idiots doing walking around here at 3am?”  I think I said, “Taco Bell?”  And Tom said, “Turn up the music.”  Yeah, that wasn’t all that great of an idea, even if we did have them drop us off a half mile from home. 

I told Tom not to let me hitchhike again.  Friends don’t let friends hitchhike. 

Friends also don’t let friends fall off barstools.  I went out with some guys last Wednesday night.  We had a round at a restaurant bar and were standing next to three women perched on bar stools.  One of them was hammered.  Head on her arm cuddling with the bar hammered.  The bartender stopped serving her, but didn’t kick her out.  Her friends were gabbing away like she wasn’t even there. 

The bartender walked by and poked her with his finger.  He said, “You can’t sleep here.”  Geez, some bars are assholes!  Her friends just laughed and she proceeded to sway and eat tortilla chips.  As we talked, all five of us were watching her.  It wasn’t a matter of if she’d fall; it was a matter of when. 

So we started building a barstool barrier around her.  We figured the bar would stop her from falling forward.  Her friends would stop her from falling to the left. We had to cover everything else.  For some reason we thought we needed to be discreet while surrounding her with barstools.  She seemed like an angry drunk, casting dagger stares at her friends and the bartender.  Somebody slid a stool next to her on her right.  We backed that up with two others behind it.  Then somebody was able to slide a stool next to that one, sort of diagonal to her.  We backed that one up with two more.  There were now six stools around her like flies on shit.  All we had to do was fill in the gap behind her.  Speaking of anal, the engineer in our group adjusted the six stools to what he considered a better safety net. 

Just as we secured another empty stool and were sliding it behind her; BOOM.  Well, maybe more of a PLOP.  She fell straight back onto the floor.  It was just like when Mike Brady dropped the giant book on the floor in the courtroom when that dick in the neck brace was trying to pretend Carol gave him whiplash in a car accident.  The whole bar looked and the drunk chick popped up like she was stone cold sober. 

It was actually funny so thank goodness she wasn’t hurt.  She got back up on the stool and seemed to have forgotten what just happened because she was stunned at the massive number of stools surrounding her.  She looked at them like they were aliens from another planet about to take her away.  Her friends went back to ignoring her.

We left the bar and talked about how we’ve never been that drunk before.  But now that I think about it, what is worse?  Falling off a barstool on a Wednesday night or taking a ride home from a nasty strip club with a couple crack-hoes?

Good thing I’m too busy to get into trouble over the next 24 days (while I go to the home opener or while in Vegas or while in New Orleans at Jazz Fest).  I’m such an angel.