This past weekend one of my worst nightmares came true: my two best friends flew up to New York City to visit. This, by all rights, should have been the death of us. We've gone out drinking together many many times, but our shenanigans were always limited by our surroundings, and you can't get into too much trouble in Jacksonville Beach. But we sure tried like hell. In our short lives we've managed to steal cones, bikes, alcohol, engaged in several dance offs, driven under the influence (not proud of this one), vandalized neighborhoods (but in a nice way, not destructive), made friends with very interesting people (The Potato Man who sells purple crack), urinated and vomited in public multiple times, the list goes on and on. Most of this harmless, however at the time probably dangerous.
But this was all done within the confines of our hometown. There was the occasional trip to visit each other in college, but that was as crazy as we thought things would get. Then I moved the NYC and the possibilities became endless. I welcome you to experience my nightmare:
Thursday morning they both flew in, at the same time. I'm pretty sure they started drinking on the plane but cannot be certain. I left the fridge fully stocked for them because I am an exceptional host. They explored the city while I worked all day. As soon as I got off they were waiting outside my office, party time. First location was Off the Wagon. Good bar off of Bleecker street. The kind of bar that was crowded enough to feel like a good time but quiet enough to be able to catch up. Now that we've gotten all caught up, time to move on to the next bar, Thunder Jackson's. Here's where things get fuzzy. We've already been drinking for about 5 hours, done a few Irish car bombs and didn't really have dinner. Jarrod was the worst of us, mainly because he kept ordering shots and pounding beer. Did I mention these beers were 33oz? They were. Jarrod starts dancing, Jaeger shots are had. Jarrod steals two shots off the waitres' tray then hands here a 20, very unnecessary shots. He starts doing the Bernie. He gets the waitress to do the Bernie. For reference, watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBLmogRL4c
This is basically the last thing we remember, so the rest of the story is told from Kyle's memory. Apparently Jarrod and I left the bar for a while, which might explain the t-shirt I found in my work bag the next morning. I vaguely remember Jarrod running up to me last night and saying "quick, shove this in your bag". No idea where he got it from. Somehow we got to the McDonalds near my apartment. This is where apparently while we were in line we met some protesters, from the Occupy Wall Street movement. We'd been waiting for this moment as we're all doing just fine in our life and careers and don't understand what these protesting idiots are doing. My buddy Kyle is a lawyer, he knows how to argue. Apparently he shut the guy up several times, yet apparently the guy ended up buying our McDonalds. Which is hilarious. At some point Jarrod realized how drunk he was and started falling asleep in the restaurant. Apparently there was also a police officer on the premises, questioning Jarrod's consciousness, to which Kyle replied "oh sorry he has a sleeping disorder" and took him home. I, several minutes earlier, had told Kyle I had to go to the bathroom but apparently just went home. I had to work the next day? That's my excuse anyway. Woke up in my apartment, Kyle and Jarrod were both there, and I had a new t-shirt. Solid first night.
Friday at work was a little rough given the night ended without any recollection. However we're fucking champs, so we recovered and went out again Friday. This was the tame night. We went out for margaritas and nachos, then to go get beer. We went to quite a few bars, I still know the managers where I used to wait/bartend. So we got a few drinks for free, which is always nice. We then decided to try another neighborhood, so ventured up to LES. Didn't quite get far enough but it was late so we decided to walk back. We made a pit stop of course by the protesters for some street meat and debating. We met a nice veteran who didn't know shit about global economics, as Kyle put it. Multiple times. Since we got nowhere with him we decided to go back and try another protester. Instead we found a pumpkin sitting on an "information desk". So, naturally, we proceeded to take as many pamphlets as possible and the pumpkin. There was a man in a green jacket that I'm pretty sure caught on to us, but he did not trail us. Night two, successful, with more souvenirs.
The weekend. Finally. Saturday we decided to go to brunch since Kyle had to leave early the next morning. Did I mention Kyle had a 6am flight Sunday morning? Yeah. That's important to note. We get to brunch at 12:30 where we proceed to eat a hearty meal and down about 5 screw drivers each. During this jolly meal our conversation somehow brings up what it might be like to have sex with Hellen Keller. Which we also decide will make a great pick-up line and challenge each other to try it that night. After brunch we went back to the apartment and took a short break to regroup and get the voucher I had bought to go to a beer garden. May I just say that whoever came up with the term beer garden is a genius. We go to the beer garden for a couple hours to use the voucher and have some dinner. Decide that the atmosphere is great and we want to come back later that night to rage. Awesome.
We go home and clean up, shower, change, etc. Stephanie had a friend come over to go hang out with us, we waited for her, she showed up and we proceed to the elevator. Now, this part gets weird. We're in the elevator, all slightly drunk, when it stops to pick up an unsuspecting character. Jarrod says to him "hey there guy", except when he pronounces "guy" it sounds a helluva lot like "gay". Stephanie, already not being a fan of Jarrod takes HUGE offense to this. She thought he intentionally called the guy gay. He did not. The elevator hits the lobby, everyone gets out except for Steph and she yells out "that was bullshit, I'm not going" so I jump back in the elevator as the doors shut to figure out what the hell just happened. She mis-heard, no one else noticed. Women. Fuck. Oh well, we go out without her. We get back to the beer garden, it's hopping. A gorgeous night, perfect weather. The fire pits are flickering, bartenders are jolly and people are starting to have a good time. We head towards the tents because that's where the majority of people are, and the music sounds pretty good. We're walking through the crowd, looking around. Suddenly I notice the people around seem... different. They're all making hand gestures. Wait a second. Those aren't hand gestures, it's sign language... I grab Kyle's shoulder and say "dude, those people are deaf", to which he turned and replied "THEY'RE. ALL. DEAF." We had apparently unknowingly crashed a deaf person night out. Seriously everyone at this beer garden was talking in sigh language. Remember that Hellen Keller joke/awesome pick-up line from earlier? Yeah. Not the place to use it. This is what we get for making that joke. We turn and high tail it out of the tents and just stare at each other for a solid 20 seconds before bursting into laughter. We literally did not know what to say. So naturally, we went back in for another look. The sheer irony had us stunned. We went to order drinks, Kyle refused to use words when I asked him what he wanted to drink. He only gave me thumbs up or thumbs down. Dick.
After we were done getting our minds blown at the beer garden we moved on to Ulysses. Since it was just us men we decided to try and talk to girls. We weren't trying to get anywhere, it's just fun to flirt. Kyle ends up talking to this chick, Jarrod ends up talking to another chick, turns out they were friends. So we all start hanging out. Before we went out we had established some back stories. Jarrod was a back-up dancer for Usher, Kyle owned a few non-profit organizations in Miami, and I of course was a pro baseball player. These girls thought we were the three most interesting guys they'd ever met. So much so that they were talking about us the next day eve. How do I know this? Because the next morning when we'd all gone our separate ways, Kyle, Jarrod, and I were standing in line for bagels. Jarrod decided to do the Bernie in line for the heck of it, or because he was still drunk. Immediately after someone behind us tapped him on the shoulder "Jarrod Farmer?!" Yep. The girls we had met night before in line behind us for bagels. Conversations went a little something like this:
Girl: Sooo were you really a back up dancer for Usher?
Jarrod: haha uhhh no.
Kyle: How many non-profits did I own last night?
Other girl: Uhh I think three
All: hahahahaha
Kyle: But I do live in Miami... that part is true...
All: hahaha
(awkward silence)
You cannot make this shit up. These are the kinds of things that happen to us. OH, did I mention that about 3 hours prior to this Kyle was supposed to be on a plane to Miami? Yeah. We got home at about 3:30am, he needed to leave at 4:00am to get to the airport for a 6:30 flight. At about 3:45am we're sitting on the couch looking at each other, thinking ok we have 15 minutes before he has to leave. Aaaand next thing we know it's 6:30am and we're both still on the couch. So. Chain of events: Hellen Keller joke, bar filled with deaf people, lying about what we do, bumping into lie victims at bagel place next morning after Kyle misses flight and get totally called out. We also harassed the protesters that night after the bar, but you probably already knew that... this is our life.
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