duys
12 July 2006
By the time I arrived down the shore on Thursday night, for the "Drink Until You Shit" weekend, it was almost 1am. So I watched a little TV and went to bed.
After a day of lying around the pool and walking around the town, on Friday night I couldn’t find anyone willing to go out. Make no mistake – I didn’t want to get bombed, since the last thing I wanted for the DUYS tour was a hangover. But I wanted to have a couple of beers in a social setting. But it was not meant to be. Everyone I called was taking it easy, so I did what any logical depressed, alcohol-loving, soon-to-be 27 year-old would do: I drank 11 beers in my underwear, watched three episodes of "Sex and the City," showered, and decided to go for a drive at 4am when I couldn’t sleep. You know, standard, awesome stuff.
The next day, the day of the DUYS tour, it was overcast. There were no threatening rain clouds, but just enough cloud cover to ensure that I would not be getting any sunburn that day, which was unfortunate. I’ve come to embrace my sunburn and celebrate as though it were a tan, as I realize that pinkish red the only color I’m ever going to get.
My buddy Kyle arrived from Philly in the afternoon for the tour. My buddy Joe from Boston was supposed to arrive also, but Joe has this thing about making plans. It follows these steps:
- Two weeks prior to an event or weekend, Joe will says he’s coming to NYC/the shore/wherever to hang out.
- Joe will spend a week excitedly talking about the weekend he will be in town
- On or around the Tuesday before Joe is to visit, he will stop communicating with me entirely. I will send Joe repeated emails and text messages and call him, but get no responses.
- On the weekend or day he is supposed to arrive, I will send Joe an impassioned plea via one of the above mentioned methods of communication, which will ask, "Dude, I really don’t care if you can’t make it, but PLEASE tell me whether or not you’re coming so I can make my own plans."
- Joe will call and offer a lame excuse explaining that he’s not coming after all (i.e. car is in the shop, girlfriend had made plans, stuck at work, race riot, etc). I say something like, "Sweet" and hang up the phone.
This happens about five times per year and is Joe’s "thing." My friends and I joke about "pulling a Joe" whenever we say we’re going to show up or go somewhere but then don’t.
(We actually use his last name, but I won’t print that here.)
Joe’s no-show was not so detrimental to me, as I would know almost everyone on the tour, having grown up with them, but more so detrimental to Kyle, since he wouldn’t know too many people on the tour. Perhaps I should explain. I draw my friends from four different groups:
- People I grew up with from the neighborhood
- People I went to high school with
- People I went to college with
- Assholes I’ve met in New York City
Because of my charm, intelligence, and ambition, I was able to beat poverty and attend a "prestigious" private high school in Philly (on scholarship). There, I made a second group of friends separate from the peeps I grew up with. After high school, because of my manipulation, humor, and ruthlessness, I left Philly to attend a "semi-prestigious" college in Boston (on scholarship). There, I made s’more friends, separate from the previous two groups. Finally, because of luck, alcohol-induced nonchalance that was mistaken for confidence, and a wonderful job market, I got a job in NYC (not on scholarship, though every time I worked past 6:30 I could get reimbursed up to $25 for dinner – $25 can get you a lot of Taco Bell). Sadly though, I haven’t made many friends here, but rather know some assholes that I drink with sometimes.
All the people on the DUYS tour would come from the "people I grew up with" group. Since I go back to Philly about once every six weeks, I hang out with these people all the time and love them. Kyle and Joe however, come from the second group of people (I also went to college with Joe, but since I met him in high school, he’s in Group 2). Though both Kyle and Joe know some of my Philly peeps, I hoped that the two of them would be there for each other while I systematically walked around the bars up to random women and say, "My name is on this shirt. Can you just hold my hand for like, fifteen seconds? I’ll sweeten the deal: you can count out loud if you like and I’ll give you $4."
The point: Kyle was flying mostly solo.
Kyle and I arrived at the first bar fashionably late at 7:30pm, thirty minutes after we told people to meet there. This really didn’t matter, since people were still showing up at 8:30pm.
Before I continue, the rules of the DUYS tour: Show up, buy a t-shirt, drink. That’s it. It’s a very unorganized tour without any drink specials or itinerary. Last year, not having an itinerary was not a problem, since maybe 35 people were on the tour. This year, we sold all 60 shirts and had a number of stragglers, bringing the number to around 80. That’s kind of a lot of people.
Since my colleague David (co-founder of the tour) was bombed approximately 28 minutes into the pub crawl, it fell on my shoulders to be the Tour Whip, making sure everyone knew when and where we were going next. At first, this was fine. But after a while…not so much.
Things began to fall apart at the second bar, the Number One Tavern (or is it Number 1? #1? whatever). This bar is famous for a Hurricane-like drink called the Tully Nut, which, at $8, is a concoction that boasts five liquors and various fruit juices. It’s pretty strong stuff. On a typical night down the shore, you might stop there for two Tully Nuts to pre-game. Two Tully Nuts will leave you feeling pretty good. I had three in under an hour. David had four.
This is where it starts to get blurry.
This is also where it started to get crappy for me. Telling 80 people who are rapidly getting progressively (almost alarmingly) drunk where and when to move is not an easy task, even if they’re your friends (probably especially if they’re your friends). So while I’d go up to groups and say, "Hey guys, at 10, we’re heading over to Keenan’s," people responded with any number of answers aside from "Ok," including but not limited to:
- "I thought we were ending at Keenan’s?"
- "No way, we should go to Annie’s next."
- "Why don’t we just stay here for another round?"
- "Last year we ended at Keenan’s. Now it’s the third bar?"
- "Did you really go on a date with Gary‘s dad or is that just a rumor?"
Fortunately, I was able to move people out of the Number One and onto the next bar, which after a small revolt, was determined to be Annie’s. More fortunately, I was pretty fucked up at this point. Less fortunately, this means when I tried again to get people moving and no one listened, I was getting angry. Real angry.
The rest of the night…it’s a little blurry. Highlights include:
- Seeing my mom, who waited at another bar to take a picture of my brother, sister and I (all on the tour), and calling her a "drunk" for being at the bar alone (mostly playfully though, since my mom doesn’t really drink);
- Getting into an argument with the bouncer at Keenan’s who would not let my underage sister into the bar, despite the fact that she had been there the night before and there were girls younger than her inside, nearly pulling the "Do you know who the fuck I am?" card;
- Seeing a girl I went to grade school with in Echo’s and telling her that I "loved her when I was a kid." She laughed. I’m not entirely positive, but I think I took her laughter to mean "You sorry son of a bitch" and I went into a spiel about how awesome I am now;
- Meeting a friend’s co-worker in Echo’s, a gentleman who reads the site, who proceeded to buy many MANY more shots that I needed in a VERY short time (shortly after this, our mutual friend left Echo’s, walked home, and "puked along the street for a good three blocks," even though he kept walking the whole time, the champion that he is).
After Echo’s I remember very little. Apparently, I was ignoring Kyle, who is secretly very high maintenance. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time, nor was I aware of his repeated requests for my keys, so that he could leave and go back to the apartment. No, all I remember was Kyle coming up to me at the bar, pushing me, and yelling, "Give me the fucking keys!" Always looking to disarm a potentially dangerous situation, I allegedly said, "But I already gave them to you." Kyle assured me that I did not, finally grabbing the keys off my person and storming off.
I spent the rest of the night acting like a goddamn unmedicated mental patient (supposedly) before the lights came on (probably) and I began the long walk home (eventually).
When I got home, per my usual "I’m super fucked up" routine, instead of properly storing my contact lenses, I took them out of my eyes and threw them the fuck out. I went to bed in the bedroom, leaving Kyle passed out on the couch.
I suppose that I still had some laden guilt about pissing Kyle off, as sometime during the night, I crawled into bed with him. Whether or not I did so after I went to the bathroom or just got straight out of bed and wanted to lay next to a warm body (very lonely), I do not know.
All I know is the next day I woke up on the sofa bed (thankfully, alone). My first instinct when I wake up in a strange place after a night of heavy drinker is to check and make sure my boxers are on. Not because I’m concerned that I was seduced by some succubus in the night, but because if my boxers are off, that usually means I’ve pissed myself; I’ll sometimes piss myself in bed and throw them off during the night when I finally recognize the wetness or, more likely, I’ll get up, walk to a corner or wall in the room, drop my boxers to my ankles and piss, leaving the boxers to soak up the warm urine bouncing off the wall and collecting at my feet.
My boxers were on, so I was safe. That meant that more than likely I didn’t piss myself and I later confirmed that I did not. After talking to Kyle, all I did was simply crawl onto one side of the sofa bed. This woke him up and he protested, saying, "Dude, go back to bed." I told him, "I’m sleeping - shut up" and started snoring. He immediately got off of bed and slept in the bedroom (note by "immediately" I mean "after a little light ass play").
****
Thus concluded the 8th Annual Drink Until You Shit tour. No, no one shit themselves. The closest was my buddy Chuckie, who "exploded" outside one of the bars, spewing galloons of vomit everywhere. I don’t know if this means he’ll be captain next year, but the Rules Committee is looking into it (to help his claim, Chuckie said he probably shit himself a little bit while throwing up; Forensics is on this).
I guess I had a good time, but I don’t think so. At least I learned something for next year: we need an itinerary, or a whistle, or someone who’s willing to be the Whip. Because there’s no way I’m doing that again.
And hey – at least I have another t-shirt that I can hear around the streets of NYC and get funny looks. Nothing makes me quite as happy as making other people uncomfortable.
After a day of lying around the pool and walking around the town, on Friday night I couldn’t find anyone willing to go out. Make no mistake – I didn’t want to get bombed, since the last thing I wanted for the DUYS tour was a hangover. But I wanted to have a couple of beers in a social setting. But it was not meant to be. Everyone I called was taking it easy, so I did what any logical depressed, alcohol-loving, soon-to-be 27 year-old would do: I drank 11 beers in my underwear, watched three episodes of "Sex and the City," showered, and decided to go for a drive at 4am when I couldn’t sleep. You know, standard, awesome stuff.
The next day, the day of the DUYS tour, it was overcast. There were no threatening rain clouds, but just enough cloud cover to ensure that I would not be getting any sunburn that day, which was unfortunate. I’ve come to embrace my sunburn and celebrate as though it were a tan, as I realize that pinkish red the only color I’m ever going to get.
My buddy Kyle arrived from Philly in the afternoon for the tour. My buddy Joe from Boston was supposed to arrive also, but Joe has this thing about making plans. It follows these steps:
- Two weeks prior to an event or weekend, Joe will says he’s coming to NYC/the shore/wherever to hang out.
- Joe will spend a week excitedly talking about the weekend he will be in town
- On or around the Tuesday before Joe is to visit, he will stop communicating with me entirely. I will send Joe repeated emails and text messages and call him, but get no responses.
- On the weekend or day he is supposed to arrive, I will send Joe an impassioned plea via one of the above mentioned methods of communication, which will ask, "Dude, I really don’t care if you can’t make it, but PLEASE tell me whether or not you’re coming so I can make my own plans."
- Joe will call and offer a lame excuse explaining that he’s not coming after all (i.e. car is in the shop, girlfriend had made plans, stuck at work, race riot, etc). I say something like, "Sweet" and hang up the phone.
This happens about five times per year and is Joe’s "thing." My friends and I joke about "pulling a Joe" whenever we say we’re going to show up or go somewhere but then don’t.
(We actually use his last name, but I won’t print that here.)
Joe’s no-show was not so detrimental to me, as I would know almost everyone on the tour, having grown up with them, but more so detrimental to Kyle, since he wouldn’t know too many people on the tour. Perhaps I should explain. I draw my friends from four different groups:
- People I grew up with from the neighborhood
- People I went to high school with
- People I went to college with
- Assholes I’ve met in New York City
Because of my charm, intelligence, and ambition, I was able to beat poverty and attend a "prestigious" private high school in Philly (on scholarship). There, I made a second group of friends separate from the peeps I grew up with. After high school, because of my manipulation, humor, and ruthlessness, I left Philly to attend a "semi-prestigious" college in Boston (on scholarship). There, I made s’more friends, separate from the previous two groups. Finally, because of luck, alcohol-induced nonchalance that was mistaken for confidence, and a wonderful job market, I got a job in NYC (not on scholarship, though every time I worked past 6:30 I could get reimbursed up to $25 for dinner – $25 can get you a lot of Taco Bell). Sadly though, I haven’t made many friends here, but rather know some assholes that I drink with sometimes.
All the people on the DUYS tour would come from the "people I grew up with" group. Since I go back to Philly about once every six weeks, I hang out with these people all the time and love them. Kyle and Joe however, come from the second group of people (I also went to college with Joe, but since I met him in high school, he’s in Group 2). Though both Kyle and Joe know some of my Philly peeps, I hoped that the two of them would be there for each other while I systematically walked around the bars up to random women and say, "My name is on this shirt. Can you just hold my hand for like, fifteen seconds? I’ll sweeten the deal: you can count out loud if you like and I’ll give you $4."
The point: Kyle was flying mostly solo.
Kyle and I arrived at the first bar fashionably late at 7:30pm, thirty minutes after we told people to meet there. This really didn’t matter, since people were still showing up at 8:30pm.
Before I continue, the rules of the DUYS tour: Show up, buy a t-shirt, drink. That’s it. It’s a very unorganized tour without any drink specials or itinerary. Last year, not having an itinerary was not a problem, since maybe 35 people were on the tour. This year, we sold all 60 shirts and had a number of stragglers, bringing the number to around 80. That’s kind of a lot of people.
Since my colleague David (co-founder of the tour) was bombed approximately 28 minutes into the pub crawl, it fell on my shoulders to be the Tour Whip, making sure everyone knew when and where we were going next. At first, this was fine. But after a while…not so much.
Things began to fall apart at the second bar, the Number One Tavern (or is it Number 1? #1? whatever). This bar is famous for a Hurricane-like drink called the Tully Nut, which, at $8, is a concoction that boasts five liquors and various fruit juices. It’s pretty strong stuff. On a typical night down the shore, you might stop there for two Tully Nuts to pre-game. Two Tully Nuts will leave you feeling pretty good. I had three in under an hour. David had four.
This is where it starts to get blurry.
This is also where it started to get crappy for me. Telling 80 people who are rapidly getting progressively (almost alarmingly) drunk where and when to move is not an easy task, even if they’re your friends (probably especially if they’re your friends). So while I’d go up to groups and say, "Hey guys, at 10, we’re heading over to Keenan’s," people responded with any number of answers aside from "Ok," including but not limited to:
- "I thought we were ending at Keenan’s?"
- "No way, we should go to Annie’s next."
- "Why don’t we just stay here for another round?"
- "Last year we ended at Keenan’s. Now it’s the third bar?"
- "Did you really go on a date with Gary‘s dad or is that just a rumor?"
Fortunately, I was able to move people out of the Number One and onto the next bar, which after a small revolt, was determined to be Annie’s. More fortunately, I was pretty fucked up at this point. Less fortunately, this means when I tried again to get people moving and no one listened, I was getting angry. Real angry.
The rest of the night…it’s a little blurry. Highlights include:
- Seeing my mom, who waited at another bar to take a picture of my brother, sister and I (all on the tour), and calling her a "drunk" for being at the bar alone (mostly playfully though, since my mom doesn’t really drink);
- Getting into an argument with the bouncer at Keenan’s who would not let my underage sister into the bar, despite the fact that she had been there the night before and there were girls younger than her inside, nearly pulling the "Do you know who the fuck I am?" card;
- Seeing a girl I went to grade school with in Echo’s and telling her that I "loved her when I was a kid." She laughed. I’m not entirely positive, but I think I took her laughter to mean "You sorry son of a bitch" and I went into a spiel about how awesome I am now;
- Meeting a friend’s co-worker in Echo’s, a gentleman who reads the site, who proceeded to buy many MANY more shots that I needed in a VERY short time (shortly after this, our mutual friend left Echo’s, walked home, and "puked along the street for a good three blocks," even though he kept walking the whole time, the champion that he is).
After Echo’s I remember very little. Apparently, I was ignoring Kyle, who is secretly very high maintenance. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time, nor was I aware of his repeated requests for my keys, so that he could leave and go back to the apartment. No, all I remember was Kyle coming up to me at the bar, pushing me, and yelling, "Give me the fucking keys!" Always looking to disarm a potentially dangerous situation, I allegedly said, "But I already gave them to you." Kyle assured me that I did not, finally grabbing the keys off my person and storming off.
I spent the rest of the night acting like a goddamn unmedicated mental patient (supposedly) before the lights came on (probably) and I began the long walk home (eventually).
When I got home, per my usual "I’m super fucked up" routine, instead of properly storing my contact lenses, I took them out of my eyes and threw them the fuck out. I went to bed in the bedroom, leaving Kyle passed out on the couch.
I suppose that I still had some laden guilt about pissing Kyle off, as sometime during the night, I crawled into bed with him. Whether or not I did so after I went to the bathroom or just got straight out of bed and wanted to lay next to a warm body (very lonely), I do not know.
All I know is the next day I woke up on the sofa bed (thankfully, alone). My first instinct when I wake up in a strange place after a night of heavy drinker is to check and make sure my boxers are on. Not because I’m concerned that I was seduced by some succubus in the night, but because if my boxers are off, that usually means I’ve pissed myself; I’ll sometimes piss myself in bed and throw them off during the night when I finally recognize the wetness or, more likely, I’ll get up, walk to a corner or wall in the room, drop my boxers to my ankles and piss, leaving the boxers to soak up the warm urine bouncing off the wall and collecting at my feet.
My boxers were on, so I was safe. That meant that more than likely I didn’t piss myself and I later confirmed that I did not. After talking to Kyle, all I did was simply crawl onto one side of the sofa bed. This woke him up and he protested, saying, "Dude, go back to bed." I told him, "I’m sleeping - shut up" and started snoring. He immediately got off of bed and slept in the bedroom (note by "immediately" I mean "after a little light ass play").
****
Thus concluded the 8th Annual Drink Until You Shit tour. No, no one shit themselves. The closest was my buddy Chuckie, who "exploded" outside one of the bars, spewing galloons of vomit everywhere. I don’t know if this means he’ll be captain next year, but the Rules Committee is looking into it (to help his claim, Chuckie said he probably shit himself a little bit while throwing up; Forensics is on this).
I guess I had a good time, but I don’t think so. At least I learned something for next year: we need an itinerary, or a whistle, or someone who’s willing to be the Whip. Because there’s no way I’m doing that again.
And hey – at least I have another t-shirt that I can hear around the streets of NYC and get funny looks. Nothing makes me quite as happy as making other people uncomfortable.
