My First “Legal” Night on the Town
Probably the greatest tragedy of my past year was that only a week after I deployed to come to Afghanistan I turned 21. Since my leave wasn’t until October, I had a lot of time to be pissed that I didn’t get to celebrate. Well, when October finally came, I made sure my first “Legal” weekend out was epic, with the help of a few friends of course. Obviously, I took the opportunity while traveling to get a taste for being able to go into bars and legally order drinks. But it wasn’t until the Friday after I got home (I got home on Tuesday) that I was able to actually go out with friends. This is the first night of what turned out to be one of the best weekends of my adult life.
So the night started off around seven or so with a BIG dinner including family and friends. We were in my hometown, and between my siblings, grandparents, and family friends, we took up a 20 person table. It was pretty awesome. The restaurant is an out of this world little Italian place my mom took us to as kids, the food is absolutely the best “restaurant” Italian food I have ever had, and between the piles of food and bottles of wine at that table you can ensure we had a great time.
Well, the liquor stores in North Carolina seemingly close at 9pm, a horrible practice in my opinion. So only an hour or two into the dinner my buddy and I had to leave and get a handle of something, I cannot remember what, for the Sangria our hosts wanted to start the night with.
A bit of a side note/story: Upon my arrival at the RDU airport, I was greeted by a large AVIS bus with a picture of a gorgeous 2010 Camaro on the side. I decided at that moment I was going to rent that car. It was totally worth it.
So my buddy and I met up at the Liquor store, got the alcohol, and I let him drive the Camaro around for a bit. We dropped the Camaro off at his parents’ house, stopped to pick up another friend, and headed out to UNC for good times.
The night started off pretty slow. My sister wanted me to meet her friends, so I complied. I lost interest fairly quickly, most of the conversations consisted of their classes so I hovered around the pot full of sangria trying to get my buzz on. The most fun I had while at this house was when her boyfriend showed up, and in a bout of spontaneity I took my chance to play the “Bad Boys” role, and scared the shit out of this kid (he was literally shaking and calling me sir).
Basically, this kid had no clue who I was when he got there, and was facing the other direction talking to his friends. I was standing right next to him, all of us out on the front porch, and for some stupid reason my sister decided to motion to him indicating he was her boyfriend. I place a solid hand on this kids shoulder, turn him around, and introduce myself as "His girlfriend's older brother". Knowing my sister, she had told him all about me, how I'm in the Army and have spent the past 11 months in Afghanistan. I had been waiting for this moment for a while, knowing the jist of what I was going to say to him, mixed with the buzz I had going I let loose on him. Sadly, I don't have a transcript of the conversation, but as I remember it went something like this:
ME: So what do you do?
HIM: I go to school here, Sir
ME: What's your Major? (A bit more intense)
HIM: -INSERT MAJOR-, Sir
ME: What are your plans with my sister?
HIM: Blah Blah
I think you get the idea, but I kept this up for a good five or ten minutes. I honestly don't remember shit said except that he was scared out of his wits and finished every sentence with a "Sir". Most likely due to the fact this kid was torched, but other than that he seemed like a good guy. It has just been a long running desire of mine to mind fuck my sister's boyfriend, and I can now say I'm pretty satisfied in that regard. Gotta love being an older brother.
Around ten pm, I decided I was bored and insisted we move out onto Franklin Street, a somewhat famous location for college kids in the area. We hung out at one bar for a while, met up with some other old and new friends, took uncounted shots of patron and drank a dozen or so bud lights.
We moved on to another bar close to midnight that was fairly popular, and for that reason was packed to the doors. Not really my kind of place, but I was getting sloppy and didn’t care. I decided one of the girls with us was into me, and thought things were going pretty well. I Bought rounds for everyone, along with a few for just me and her. Nobody noticed us, the place was pretty crowded and by this time the awe factor of me being home had dissipated.
Well the bartender decided it was time for last call (another horrible practice), so I bought a final round of patron for everyone. I was probably somewhere around 8 shots of patron and 10 beers this night, and remember I had not drunk heavily for about 10 months. As soon as I downed that shot, I realized it was a bad idea. Luckily the confusion of the bar closing caught everyone off guard. I snuck outside, let that shot out, wiped my mouth and was good.
This event took all of 20 seconds from the time I gulped that shot to me wiping my mouth. I look up and my sister is standing over me in awe. Her comment was something along the lines of “that was amazing”, likely referring to how I casually yakked up what was only that one shot and was fine. I explain how it’s somewhat of an acquired ability of mine after a year of heavy partying EVERY weekend (after last deployment I bought a house and had 40-50 people there every Friday and Saturday all year long; The stories I can remember will come later).
The night from here on out is pretty blurry. I remember the friend we picked up on our way out being very belligerent and creeping on the girl I had been talking to. So badly that she left. Cock blocked my first night out, and he would go on the next morning to say he had blacked out, didn’t know I had been hitting on her and didn’t remember scaring her away. I still hold a grudge.
We walked around downtown Chapel Hill for an hour or two, being normal college aged drunks in a strange town. I’m surprised nobody called the cops. Somehow we ended up in the care of my friend’s cousin, and slept in her house while she went and stayed with her boyfriend.
Pretty normal night. However, it was the next morning that things got really interesting.
We got to sleep around 4 or 5 am, only to awake about five hours later. After shaking off some of the hangover (none of us recovered at all that weekend), getting fully clothed and a bit hydrated, my buddy realizes he lost his keys. We tear apart that house looking for them. Mind you, there were beautiful, half naked girls getting ready for the day from the time we woke up, acting as if we weren't there and somewhat drawing my attention away from the keys. We eventually gave up our search there, and decided to backtrack the whole night.
We returned to where we had begun the night, at my sister’s friend’s house. I feel like crap, and really don’t give a shit if we find the keys or not. I have decided I don’t mind spending another day out here. My friend is not fond of this idea. While I sit around outside enjoying a beautiful morning, he goes inside and wakes everyone up to find his keys. The people inside are not fond of his idea either. I see my sister’s car parked out front, and so go over to check out her wheels. A while later, my buddy comes out without any luck, and I ask him if he checked her car. It’s locked, but he looks to his feet and there they are, lying in the grass. We all are happy. Still hung over, we set out to find some food.
If you have never been to Franklin Street, then you are missing out. It’s one street for everything, and I’m not surprised I have met people who have never been to North Carolina who know about it. Not only is this a great place to be, but it was a beautiful "Carolina" morning, and being late summer everything was still warm, green and beautiful.
Anyways, this street is littered with restaurants of every ethnicity, awesome little stores and some pretty odd people. I guess it’s like your normal college town, but I wouldn't really know. We walk about a mile down this road, the temperature regularly getting hotter and no satisfaction with our early morning food choices, before my buddy decides he’s happy with the last restaurant on the strip. It’s a little Italian sub shop; he gets lemonade, I get lemonade and some chicken cacciatore. It’s amazing.
After eating and praising the VERY Italian family running this restaurant, we step outside only to realize we have NO idea where we are, and even less idea where we parked. All we know is we are on one side of campus, and my sister had us park in a parking lot on the other side of campus. After another hour and a half quest to find our car, meeting quite a few people in the process to ask for directions to a parking lot we could only guess the name of, we end up turned down a road towards a staircase that descends down into a parking lot, and somehow all three of us instantly know this is the right lot.
We are excited. We run to the staircase, only to come to a screeching halt at the top, our jaws hitting the pavement. My sister had failed to mention that today was the UNC/ Clemson game. We had parked in a main tailgating lot, and my buddy’s borrowed truck, something along the lines of an F-250 raised about four inches sitting on around 38s, was in the dead center of hundreds of comfortable pre-gamers.
45 minutes of politely asking people to accommodate our escape, a 20 dollar ticket tucked neatly into the drivers side door, and one blazing hot black truck cab later, we are on the road and finding our way home.
I have had many more epic nights, but due to the people involved, and the fact it was my first night of truly enjoying my long due legality, this was one of my absolute favorites. We spent the day re-cooping for another awesome night with another great group of people, a story to be told another day.
We moved on to another bar close to midnight that was fairly popular, and for that reason was packed to the doors. Not really my kind of place, but I was getting sloppy and didn’t care. I decided one of the girls with us was into me, and thought things were going pretty well. I Bought rounds for everyone, along with a few for just me and her. Nobody noticed us, the place was pretty crowded and by this time the awe factor of me being home had dissipated.
Well the bartender decided it was time for last call (another horrible practice), so I bought a final round of patron for everyone. I was probably somewhere around 8 shots of patron and 10 beers this night, and remember I had not drunk heavily for about 10 months. As soon as I downed that shot, I realized it was a bad idea. Luckily the confusion of the bar closing caught everyone off guard. I snuck outside, let that shot out, wiped my mouth and was good.
This event took all of 20 seconds from the time I gulped that shot to me wiping my mouth. I look up and my sister is standing over me in awe. Her comment was something along the lines of “that was amazing”, likely referring to how I casually yakked up what was only that one shot and was fine. I explain how it’s somewhat of an acquired ability of mine after a year of heavy partying EVERY weekend (after last deployment I bought a house and had 40-50 people there every Friday and Saturday all year long; The stories I can remember will come later).
The night from here on out is pretty blurry. I remember the friend we picked up on our way out being very belligerent and creeping on the girl I had been talking to. So badly that she left. Cock blocked my first night out, and he would go on the next morning to say he had blacked out, didn’t know I had been hitting on her and didn’t remember scaring her away. I still hold a grudge.
We walked around downtown Chapel Hill for an hour or two, being normal college aged drunks in a strange town. I’m surprised nobody called the cops. Somehow we ended up in the care of my friend’s cousin, and slept in her house while she went and stayed with her boyfriend.
Pretty normal night. However, it was the next morning that things got really interesting.
We got to sleep around 4 or 5 am, only to awake about five hours later. After shaking off some of the hangover (none of us recovered at all that weekend), getting fully clothed and a bit hydrated, my buddy realizes he lost his keys. We tear apart that house looking for them. Mind you, there were beautiful, half naked girls getting ready for the day from the time we woke up, acting as if we weren't there and somewhat drawing my attention away from the keys. We eventually gave up our search there, and decided to backtrack the whole night.
We returned to where we had begun the night, at my sister’s friend’s house. I feel like crap, and really don’t give a shit if we find the keys or not. I have decided I don’t mind spending another day out here. My friend is not fond of this idea. While I sit around outside enjoying a beautiful morning, he goes inside and wakes everyone up to find his keys. The people inside are not fond of his idea either. I see my sister’s car parked out front, and so go over to check out her wheels. A while later, my buddy comes out without any luck, and I ask him if he checked her car. It’s locked, but he looks to his feet and there they are, lying in the grass. We all are happy. Still hung over, we set out to find some food.
If you have never been to Franklin Street, then you are missing out. It’s one street for everything, and I’m not surprised I have met people who have never been to North Carolina who know about it. Not only is this a great place to be, but it was a beautiful "Carolina" morning, and being late summer everything was still warm, green and beautiful.
Anyways, this street is littered with restaurants of every ethnicity, awesome little stores and some pretty odd people. I guess it’s like your normal college town, but I wouldn't really know. We walk about a mile down this road, the temperature regularly getting hotter and no satisfaction with our early morning food choices, before my buddy decides he’s happy with the last restaurant on the strip. It’s a little Italian sub shop; he gets lemonade, I get lemonade and some chicken cacciatore. It’s amazing.
After eating and praising the VERY Italian family running this restaurant, we step outside only to realize we have NO idea where we are, and even less idea where we parked. All we know is we are on one side of campus, and my sister had us park in a parking lot on the other side of campus. After another hour and a half quest to find our car, meeting quite a few people in the process to ask for directions to a parking lot we could only guess the name of, we end up turned down a road towards a staircase that descends down into a parking lot, and somehow all three of us instantly know this is the right lot.
We are excited. We run to the staircase, only to come to a screeching halt at the top, our jaws hitting the pavement. My sister had failed to mention that today was the UNC/ Clemson game. We had parked in a main tailgating lot, and my buddy’s borrowed truck, something along the lines of an F-250 raised about four inches sitting on around 38s, was in the dead center of hundreds of comfortable pre-gamers.
45 minutes of politely asking people to accommodate our escape, a 20 dollar ticket tucked neatly into the drivers side door, and one blazing hot black truck cab later, we are on the road and finding our way home.
I have had many more epic nights, but due to the people involved, and the fact it was my first night of truly enjoying my long due legality, this was one of my absolute favorites. We spent the day re-cooping for another awesome night with another great group of people, a story to be told another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment