Ben's Birthday
Long time since I had a picture post. Thanks to Alyson for mailing me these.
The night began in one of the worst ways possible. I drove out to Poughkeepsie to meet with everyone else at Steve and Cora's house. As I was pulling up to the curb to parallel park, I hit a pothole and suddenly filled the neighborhood with noise. I instantly knew what had happened. Parked, grabbed a glove from the back seat, and knelt down next to the car. Sure enough, the cracked back end of the Jeep's muffler had snapped all the way through. It was dragging, and there was no easy way to repair it on the spot. At this point, I really stopped caring. This one was rusted to hell and would just break again in a week or two anyway. I pushed the muffler to the side with my foot, went around to the other side of the car, and using my gloved hand, snapped off the slightly still attached front of the muffler. I tossed the whole apparatus in the trunk, and went on with my night.
While we waited for Steve to get home from work, Dave, Ben, Carlo, Cora, and I hung out and got caught up on current events. After a little Guitar Hero was played, we voted 3-to-2 that we should play Karaoke Revolution instead. We ended up playing American Idol because it's the same game with more features. Huzzah. Dave went first, singing "Sugar, we're going down swinging." The goal was to sing the lyrics from the youtube parody. He took that song Down Tuu in a Luleelurah. I stepped up and sung "Hungry Like the Wolf," in which I kept wanting to sing the chorus to the Reel Big Fish ska version, which made it more difficult. Cora sang "The Piano Man," and then Steve was home. He went from professional looking to our favored Goth Steve look in record time.
Before we could leave, Dave and Steve had to do a few shots to get a mild buzz going before facing bar drink prices. This of course turned into some kitchen wrestling and an "I think I can lift you" contest. For the record, I can lift Steve, but not for very long. Especially when I am standing on his pantleg.
I volunteered to drive Dave's car to the bar, but not back. We piled in six people, and drove off with two in front, four in back. I had never been to this bar, so everyone navigated. Shadows on the Hudson was really fancy looking from the outside. The inside was really no different. It looked...big. That's the only way I can define it.
The place really was too big. I can't imagine it ever reaching capacity, even on a rainy day where the outside bar is inaccessible. The music was pretty bad. It had no continuity to it, and was probably just an MP3 player set to shuffle. That is my biggest complaint about the place. Even had the music been really good, there's no real clear-cut dance floor. In the right hands, that place could be nuts. Additionally, the crowd was such a mixture of Poughkeepsie natives. For instance, I felt bad being a guy in a T-shirt walking within feet of an elderly couple seated at their table to enjoy a fancy dinner with oysters and champagnes. I quickly got over it, but it was just weird. Businessmen unwinding from a long Friday were seated at the outside bar next to homeboys and gangsta' dudes. Incredibly well-dressed girls were being hit on by men in their fifties. There was just no dominant culture, or at least there was not last night.
Complaints aside, I had a fantastic night. When we showed up, it was Mets at Astros in the 11th inning. Immediately I was thinking, "Yay! Extra innings!" Had I known two and a half hours later I'd be cheering along with the whole bar to see the Mets win 5-3 in the 17th inning. I don't watch baseball intently, but that game was intense.
Meanwhile, we were buying round after round of drinks for Ben. We wanted to make sure that he had a good, if not memorable birthday.
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About an hour into the night, Alissa and Alyson showed up to join the fun. I sort of knew them from Marist, but not exactly. It's weird. Basically I know of a lot of people. We have the same friends and typically attended the same parties, but never really had a reason to interact. These two made the second and third Marist girls that I knew, yet "met" this week.
Everyone had a great time. Plus, what kind of party would it be if we did not drive the birthday boy to vomiting?
I don't even know what these shots were, but they were offered, and I am not one to disappoint (despite my prior decision of "no mystery drinks"). Around two-something, the girls left. The rest of us had about another half hour of fun in the bar. At one point, we were in one of the side rooms, and Steve decided he'd see how drunk/personable I was feeling. He dared me to go sit at a table with three black girls. Sure thing. I sat down, talked with them for a bit. One of them was also celebrating a birthday. After a few minutes, I said goodbye and went back to our table. I was rewarded with a "well-played, Mr. Way." A few minutes later, the girls called me back over to take some pictures of them.
Sure enough, Ben was ready to puke at this point. I took him to the bathroom and coached him through the initial vomit. When he was well enough, we went home. As I said earlier, I wasn't going to drive back. That was Dave's department. I, instead, got to ride "superman" across three people in the back seat. We were drunk enough at this point that I doubt anyone really minded.
When we got back to Steve and Cora's, Carlo and I somehow decided to go to 7-Eleven. I have no idea why or how, but we just left... sprinting. We made it a few blocks when I lost my balance. It was one of those moments where you stumble and lean too far forward; the only way to stay up is to move your feet faster and hope to balance out. I prolonged my fall for about 10 seconds, at which point I saw a nice patch of grass next to the sidewalk. I fell, no scrapes, got back up and kept moving. About 5 or so blocks into the trek, we toned it down to a walk - I'm not too practiced at running while really drunk, and the dehydration was getting to me.
When we got to 7-Eleven, I realized that I had no clue why we even went in the first place. I grabbed a gatorade, and stupidly, an egg and cheese sandwich. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to microwave it first, because it was disgusting. Not even layers of mustard and ketchup, which were great ideas at the time, could cover the awfulness. As we were leaving, I got a phonecall requesting beef jerky for Steve. Easily fulfilled.
We walked back and said goodbye to Dave and his pukey Ben. At this point I felt really sober, but equally tired. I stashed my beer (that I opened before 7-Eleven and never touched) and promptly fell asleep.
In the morning, my poor car was loud as hell and smelled wholly of exhaust. When I got home I had some food, looked around for something to do, and decided upon a three-hour nap.