Amberance: Fun and Social (No, I'm Serious)

It has taken me well over a week to sit down and write this post detailing the events of two Thursday nights ago. This is due as much to the fact that it took me nearly this long to recover from it as it is to my well documented laziness.

In the past several months, I have inexplicably developed a social life. My good friend MrTrivia is in large part responsible for this, having gotten me addicted to playing trivia at Witts and introducing me to some really cool people. Two weeks ago, our standing plans for Wednesday night trivia got canceled due to everyone but MrTrivia and me bailing. We decided that two people was not enough for trivia and decided to skip it for the week, leaving open the possibility of meeting up at Tai's the next day.

Thursday rolled around and it looked like it was going to be a typical Thursday with no MrTrivia due to this text message I received mid-afternoon: "I remember now why I got married. When my wife is here she makes me go to bed, but when she is out of town I stay up all night playing video games. Don't think I'll make it tonight." I had also gotten a text from MrSteve asking if I'd be around. MrSteve has gone and got himself a girlfriend and so understandably does not always show up for the Thursday ritual. I assumed he'd be showing for one and then heading off to visit his lady as per his recent custom. I was wrong on both accounts.

Shortly after I showed up for dinner, MrTrivia walked in. He had apparently texted everyone else we know as well, because they started showing up a few at a time. Notable amongst this group was Steve G. Steve G is one of Cap's fraternity brothers and is somewhat difficult to describe. He the kind of person where he shows up and you're excited to see him because you know the evening is going to be hilarious and then you regret it later when you've been thrown out of several bars due to his jackassery.

In the meantime, MrSteve had also showed and brought along his girlfriend, the actress. The significance of this cannot be overstated: MrSteve has done his very best to keep us from meeting for as long as possible because of some nebulous fear he has that Something Might Happen - at his expense. So his bringing her to Tai's on Thursday was a momentous occasion, which I marked by squealing and throwing my arms around her the second they walked through the door. Much as MrSteve had feared, the actress and I got on famously and spent most of the night talking while MrSteve made a David Byrne "My God, what have I done?" face.

By now there was so much activity that I had begun taking notes, despite knowing they were unlikely to make sense when I sobered up. Here are some:

• "Shark guy: We just didn't know they would travel those kind of distances for sex. Me: What? Have you HAD sex?" It was shark week that week, and I was ODing on shark programming. I'd sucked the bartender in as well, and so we had it on in the bar. The show we were watching was about the mating habits of Great Whites, and the shark guy's comment led to me demanding that MrSteve look up the distance of how far I've been known to travel for a conquest on his iPhone. (I have traveled 1/7 of the total circumference of the earth. Eat that, sharks.)
• "Paulblo!" I coined this term for our friend Pablo, who has recently discovered a discrepancy in his first name on several government documents. Some of them have him listed as Pablo, and others as Paul. He's been having a bit of a nightmare getting it sorted out. For the rest of us it's been really entertaining as we've all started treating him as if he were two separate people. Pablo declined to go out with us, so MrTrivia sent him a text: "Dear Paul, Pablo is being a douche. Meet us at Tai's."
• "Steve G's phone: I have feelings for you! Fas. (e-mail [MrTrivia] and he'll explain)" I have no idea what this means. Neither does MrTrivia, I checked.
• "[the actress]: It's an equation. A 39 cent kite times two engineers = you need to buy a more expensive kite. Me: Yeah, they need a kite like in The Kite Runner, but without the rape." MrSteve was telling us a story about how he and his brother struggled to get a cheap kite to fly. I was, naturally, looking for an opportunity to say something wholly inappropriate.
• "Penis pancake!" MrTrivia cleared this one up the next day when I found a photo of a cock-shaped pancake in my e-mail.

Eventually, MrSteve and the actress went home, a bunch of girls Steve G. invited showed up, and MrTrivia and I stepped out so he could have a cigarette. We ended up having a very long conversation, during which Steve G. and the girls came outside. "Fuck it, let's go to Carol's," Steve said. By now I had run out of money, it was 1:30 a.m. and I just wanted to go home, but Mr "money is no object" Trivia was not having it so we said goodbye to the bartender and cabbed it over to Carol's. I had never been to Carol's before. It is a divey country bar with a 4 o'clock license, the worst beer selection in history and frightening looking barmaids and bouncers. They were having karaoke night and I had to spend 10 minutes explaining to MrTrivia that people who really sing do not do karaoke and I was not playing. Steve "G Money" was though and we suddenly remembered just how dangerous it is to let him have a microphone. He announced that he'd gotten divorced that morning (he hadn't), sang a horrible country song (badly) and then finished by telling everyone that what he said about the divorce wasn't true - his wife had fallen off a cliff and died (his wife was at home safe and sound and probably furious with him because she doesn't like him going to Tai's). Following this MrTrivia and I went outside where at some point I decided I really needed to be smoking. I immediately regretted that decision because there was no chocolate milk handy and I can't smoke without chocolate milk (it's my smokin' milk). While we were out there, Steve G. apparently decided he'd terrorized these people enough because he came outside and shouted "FUCK THIS! Let's go back to Tai's." We did.
It was now 3:00 a.m. I shocked, SHOCKED the entire staff with my entrance and the fact that I was still awake, let alone still out and still drinking. I don't remember much of what happened after that, except for a Steelers/Wolverines fan that wanted to take me to dinner (NO! A thousand times no!). At some point I wrote a note to myself which simply reads "titty fucking". I have no idea. The next thing I knew, the lights were up and everyone was being asked to leave. I stuck around, figuring at this point I might as well just catch a ride home with the bartender. Meanwhile out on the sidewalk, MrTrivia was trying to hail a cab so he and Steve G. could go out for breakfast, and Steve G. was putting his nipples on the window and waving at us. MrTrivia later told me this behavior continued at the diner where Steve G. offered the server a handjob for a free slinger. For my part I went home and left a bunch of insane comments on Facebook, then fell asleep for an hour in my clothes. The bartender had to wake me up for work, where I spent the day fueling my consciousness with Diet Coke and trying to will time to speed up so I could go home.
MrTrivia, thanks for a great night out and for not letting me give in to the temptation of being a responsible adult. It turns out I don't hate fun after all.