Or: How to Go Drinking
Even in my dotage, friends, into which I am very, very deeply snuggled, wrapped in the warm comfort of forget fulness, epic naps, and a cheerful certainty that I have assets and income, as opposed to the icy certainty that I had debt and no clean underwear that was my constant companion in youth, even in my dotage I sometimes find myself out drinking like the old days.
I am not one who usually feels the need to sing songs about my youth. I like being this age and see nothing changing about that up until I have my first heart attack some time next week. Until then, I like this mix of experience and general physical stability and wouldn’t want to be 25 again for anything. Except, sometimes, I do miss going out drinking just about every day. No, seriously. Wasn’t that great? Monday, Wednesday, Sunday – whatever, someone was always calling around or sending an email out asking if anyone wanted to have drinks. It was a grand, wonderful time to be alive. And yes, also a dramatic and often sickly time, but do not ruin this, or I will end you.
Anyways, I do sometimes still get out to consume bottles of distilled beverages and then sing Irish folk songs like The Leaving of Liverpool remembered from when my dear old Dad used to get drunk and sing Irish folk songs, and when I do this with a crowd larger than, say, three, the same clusterfuck always happens, because crowds larger than three are programmed to act like they have never been in a bar before in their entire lives.
The Clusterfucking
Here’s what happens when you enter a tavern with a large group of people: Everyone stands around like they have no idea what to do. It takes half an hour just to decide that sitting at a table is a good idea, and about three hours before everyone is sorted out. During this time, no one — and I mean no one — will stand up, walk to the bar, and open a tab. I mean, we’re adults. This is obviously what needs to happen. We have means and we’re civilized, so we’ll tally it up at the end (see point three, though, for more on that) so instead of everyone staring at each other like imbeciles for a while, why not just open a fucking tab and start the drinks coming? I mean, damn.
Next, we have the fun of the folks who think that a bar isn’t a place where you have a few cocktails, but rather a place where you do many other things, like enjoy a full meal, or curate some wines. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a snack in a bar, and if you dig a fruit-forward Cab, more power to you. Is sitting in a bar with thirty other people the time and place to decide you’ll have the Red Snapper if you can substitute green beans for the potatoes? Jesus fucking Christ, no, it is not.
And then, of course, things finally get rolling as blessed alcohol does its work and loosens everyone up. Until The Reckoning.
The Reckoning
The sordid topic of coin, and the sordid topic of who, exactly, has been secretly ordering 25-year old Scotch on the tab (Ha, fools! IT IS ALWAYS ME DOING THIS!). Paying the bill rolls back any progress we made during the sitting and drinking portion of the evening, and once again you are surrounded by dimwitted shaved house apes who pass the bill around sheepishly, as if completely confused as to it’s meaning.
Will you end up $50 short? Of course you will. People will frown, and tug their ears seriously, and clear their throats. The mystery will persist. Sometimes you will get a half-heart second passing of the hat — but you will never be made whole, and don’t even imagine for a moment that the tip will ever be funded.
Is this one reason why people are reluctant to open a tab as I suggested above? Possibly. Though that’s giving these people who are apparently my acquaintances a lot more credit then they deserve.