Tuesday Night Binge Drinking

So on my way back from Collingwood yesterday afternoon, I stopped in to see my buddy Dunner at work. We shot the breeze for awhile, and he revealed that he hadn't had a day off since the infamous Sauble Wobble and that he, as a result, was thinking that he might come down to the city for a few beers, seeing as he didn't have to work the following morning. "Nothing crazy, just a few beers" was the way he described it. No problem, I said. I try not to make a habit out of going out on week nights, but seeing as I pretty well had the most nondescript two days of my life this past weekend, I figured there would be no harm in having a couple of Tuesday night beverages.

In case I haven't stressed this point enough in previous posts, I am an idiot.

Really, is there such a thing as going out for a few quiet drinks? Certainly not when Dunner and I get together, and certainly not on Tuesday, which everyone knows is the new Friday (in Karaoke circles, at least). Dunner showed up at my place around 9 o'clock with a six pack of Heineken, and combined with the Lucky Lagers I had stashed in the fridge for just such an occasion, we began drinking at an incredible pace while watching Aaron Hill pull a Jackie Robinson and snatch the highlight of the year award away from Blazin' Blondie, and Lebron James single handedly pull his team back into the series (and yes, I know this dunk is from Game 3 but it was too good to pass up). At one point, Dunner went out onto the balcony for a cigarette, and I went out with him. The topic of conversation turned to drinking (naturally), and we began talking about how we simply couldn't fathom how or why anybody would come home from work and have a few beers by themselves, just sitting on the couch, watching TV... "It's totally depressing", I said. "And it makes you fat", Dunner pointed out. "And I don't even see how that could be fun", I insisted. After a moment of thoughtful contemplation, Dunner offered: "I only binge drink. Really. It's the only way."

I couldn't agree more. 12 beers each on Friday and Saturday night is the only healthy, non-depressing, fun way to do it.

After a few more bevvies and a glass of bourbon, we set off into the Toronot night for Sneaky Dee's (the inspiration for The Lowest of the Low's Beer Graffiti Walls) where we (Sandra had joined us by this point) met up with Anna, hammered back a couple pitchers of Amsterdam and a monster plate the the Dee's world famous nachos, and then had Sandra and Anna decide for us that we needed to go to a birthday party for a couple of dudes named "The Jeffs". We cabbed it up to Bloor and Bathurst, and when it turned out that they were at a different bar way the hell down on Adelaide, Dunner and I decided to pop into one of my favourite old haunts, The Tap, for a quick pint while Sandra and Anna ran around like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off, darting from phone booth to phone booth in an attempt to look for an address to a bar that may or may not have actually existed. It was totally surreal. I needed a drink.

Anyway, just as Dunner and I got our bevvies, the two girls came storming into the bar saying that we needed to leave immediately because if we didn't we would miss "The Jeffs"... Considering I'd never actually met this ambiguously gay duo, it wasn't necessarily the worst thing in the world that we bid our lady friends adieu and settled in for an hour of bubble hockey (the only known such game in any bar I've ever been in - totally old school, with Canada vs. the U.S., and the 3D guys with the disproportionately long sticks... fantastic) while listening to the fantastic array of cover tunes being blasted across the speakers by DJ Poppa Cherry (The Jesus and Mary Chain covering The Temptations My Girl - out of this world).

Anyway, I was in the middle of sweeping the bubble hockey series from Dunner when we got talking to the bartender about the Jays game earlier that night. We were going on and on about how fantastic that Aaron Hill steal was, and how pathetic the Yankees are this year with their $200 million payroll and a lineup that will probably see them finishing behind the D-Rays when it's all said and done. Dunner and I were at the bubble hockey table, and Chris, the bartender, was about 7 feet from us as we continued to rip on the Yanks, discussing at length how we couldn't wait to bust out the brooms the following night, Chris describing how he was at the game the night before with a bag full of jelly beans, holding them up and taunting the Giambino every time he stepped to the plate by screaming that he had his medication and it was time to come get it...

So anyway, we're absolutely murdering the Pinstripers, and these two dudes are sitting between the bubble hockey game and the bartender, and these two guys are keeping pretty quiet, not really adding much to the mass disparagement. The only thing I really noticed about them, to be honest, was that they had this sleazy looking girl with them who started interrupting our little slander session by talking about the Ottawa Senators. Even though we're paying zero attention to her, she begins leaning up against our game, generally making a complete distraction of herself while incessantly trying to change the subject away from the Yankee bashing. We thought nothing of it, and kept ripping away at Steinbrenner's boys as I buried the game winner top shelf.

Ten minutes later, the guys get up to leave, and the one dude hands his credit card to Chris the bartender, and I'll be fucked if the name on the platinum card didn't read: Melky Cabrera... And yep, now that we thought of it, that other gigantic SOB did have a striking resemblance to Robinson Cano...

Classic. The biggest Yankee bashing session of the year takes place with Melky "the bat boy" Cabrera and Robinson Cano mediating the entire discussion. And exactly what the hell were two major leaguers doing at The Tap with an immensely annoying jersey chaser and two drunks battling it out on the bubble hockey battlefield?

Just engaging in your everyday, run-of-the-mill, Tuesday night binge drinking experience, of course.

No word on whether A-Rod stopped by earlier before heading off to the Brass Rail.


-----

I came across a fantastic article about the 50 worst band names in the history of pop music. I have no idea how Johnny Sleaze and the STDs, Buster Hymen and the Penetrators, and Billy Barf and the Vomitones were left out of the top 50, but this is a killer piece of blogging nonetheless. Check it out:

Your Band Name Sucks