A few years back I had a fine St. Patrick's that I never want to have happen again.
I started it at Opening Time, which for this special, joyous occasion was 9 AM - I decided to forgo watching the parade and instead spend the whole fucking day drinking at a bar, in this case Madhatter's, at the bigger location on Crescent, the third of four incarnations of the bar I've drank in.
We started out being four, well, there were two of us, but lack of space made another two people sit at our table, but soon enough, the three people sharing my space, being the social blabbermouths they were born to be, got the other tables interested in us.
Madhatter's, with a great sense of profiteering, had no specials on beer on the one day that pretty much celebrates the fucking thing - so it was $15 pitchers and $6 Jack Daniels. Lucky for me, ever thinker-ahead-of-times, I'd brought in a 40-ounce of Mr. Daniels' fine drink to re-fill my glass at my own convenience and save dough...
By 11 AM, there were waitresses coming around selling $1 shots of vodka-fueled drinks - Sex On the Beach and Kamikaze... I acquiesced and took two of each, and for the first time of the day, also paid some to my tablemates - at a buck a pop, it would have been wrong not to.
At noon we had our first meal - I ordered a plate of nachos, fully loaded with olives, black peppers, salsa and topped with a bit of mozzarella cheese; food helps keep the booze down, and keeps the booze hound from getting his noose wound - and spitting some juice, brown.
By 2 PM, our new friends were wasted and left, quickly replaced by new drinking buddies. It was around that time that I got up, for the first time, to evacuate a bit of liquid and take some more money out; I'd had at least 5 pitchers at this point, plus perhaps 20 ounces of JD and a dozen shots of the vodka drinks... so up the stairs I went to the men's room, which was already a walk-in puddle of transparent stickiness, and one stall - one of two, the one on the left, first from the door - seemed to be reserved for vomit-emitters and those afflicted by diarrhea. I finished what needed to be done as fast as I could to not have to spend a second longer than I had to, and promptly made my way back downstairs for more beers.
Soon enough, an army of musicians swarmed the place and got the whole populace festive, standing and cheering and yelling; it was a mini-parade inside the bar, so those of us who had missed the actual one outside were treated to a show anyhow. It was all good.
By 5 or 6 PM, it was time for another meal - a hamburger with fries. I realize in retrospect that I should have had the meal that requires the most careful handling first, before things degenerated, but hey, I didn't; not that anything was wrong with the food, both the burger and fries tasted exactly like they usually do there, but it was about that time that I, personally, started to buy the shot-waitress a shot every time she came by, which was becoming increasingly often; I can only imagine that the same thing happened with the rest of the staff, from the bartenders to the cooks. For most humans, alcohol consumption means motor skills and attention to detail start becoming a priority... but as I said, it tasted fine.
I probably went to the washroom after my meal, say by 7 or 8 PM, and it was probably stickier, smellier and more disgusting than before. At this point, it was only my second time (in about 10 hours of drinking), but I'd be going every hour on the hour from then on, and the situation upstairs just got worse. I was tempted to use the ladies' room, but it wasn't much better there, plus there was a line-up. Between 11 PM and 2 AM, I'd just go outside and urinate in the alley to save time and keep my sanity, but later than that, I feared not being let back in - keep in mind, closing time is 3 AM...
In any event, they only kicked us out past 4 AM; they stopped serving us alcohol at 3:30 (well, the shooter girl handed us drinks, many of them free by then, until 4:15), the bar had been empty except for a half-dozen hangers-on for over an hour, and the staff was wanting to go home.
We each grabbed a cab - our table, and the shooter girl and bartenders - and headed our separate ways, sad to leave each other's company but exhausted (and, for some, dead-drunk). The sun was coming up, way in the distance, and with my going East, it looked like I was headed right for it, looking to meet the sunrise head-on.
When I got home, I called my bank to find out the damage done: $750. My whole paycheque I'd just gotten 3 days prior, and a bit more.
I went to bed at 5:30 AM and had to get up at 8 to go to work. I got there at 9:30, barely a half hour late, with a headache, and proceeded to tell my boss the tale of my previous night; he wasn't surprised, but he had trouble believing it.
It was an amazing day and night, but I wouldn't do it again - I couldn't even afford to, anyhow. It's the last time I ''celebrated'' St. Patrick's Day.
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