old, drunk, but responsible
24 March 2011
This weekend, I’m headed to Philly for a beer pong tournament. Yes, I am 31 years old. And yes, I’m a little embarrassed by this, so embarrassed that I’ve been telling people that it’s a beer pong tournament for charity, at which point people say, “Oh, well, that’s nice – what charity?” and I get caught off-guard and say, “Um, tsunami relief?” and they say, “OMG! That really is nice!” and then I feel really, really terrible, because it’s not for charity at all. It’s just a massive beer pong tourney run by my buddy Dave, who some of you may know as my co-founder of the World’s Greatest Pub Crawl ™, Drink Until You Shit. So I have to support him in his other drinking-related ventures.
The tourney starts at 2pm on Saturday and features unlimited food and drink (and a t-shirt!). By my calculation, my night should be over around 9:30pm (when I go out with my buddies in Philly, the shots come out early and often). Ending my night at 9:30pm is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it can make things awkward when I get home.
You see, when I go to Philly, I usually stay at my dad’s house. He has a spare bedroom that’s always freezing and causes me to sleep like the dead, which I enjoy. Also, I do like hanging out with him. But from about 8pm until 1am every night, my dad sits in his chair and watches TV and smokes cigarettes. This is absolutely, 100% non-negotiable. If there were a fire in the kitchen, he would probably wait until whatever nature show he’s watching was over before doing anything about it. 8pm to 1am is dad-in-chair time.
So it might be a little awkward when this Saturday night I nearly fall through the door at 9:30pm, slur my speech, and then commence eating a Wawa hoagie with such voracity that I quite look like the wolverine he’s currently watching on NatGeo. And then I follow this display by taking four Bayer (forgetting that I had already taken two), asking him if it’s ok that I took four Bayer and getting upset about potentially having poisoned myself, and then spend the next two hours sitting in the only shower in the house, simultaneously trying to sober up and falling in and out of consciousness and attempting, in vain, to masturbate. Don’t get me wrong – my dad knows that I drink, and he certainly has had his fair share of drunken mishaps (and you know this because you’ve all read my book, right?). But it’s one thing to know your son hits the booze pretty hard and another to see him in the kitchen struggling in vain to open a jar of mayonnaise before putting the jar down on the counter and lying down on the kitchen floor to “regain some strength” before trying again. At 9:30pm.
[Did I mention that this beer pong tournament has a twist this year, which is a mechanical bull? Hours of hanging out with my Philly buddies, drinking unlimited draft beer, playing in (and winning) what is sure to be a competitive beer pong tourney, and then riding (or, more realistically, watching people ride) a mechanical bull? Good god – I don’t think I should plan anything for Sunday outside of napping, eating or pooping.]
I really didn’t know what to do about this. I definitely, definitely wanted to take part in the tournament, having missed it previous years, as it usually coincides with my annual man weekend/fantasy baseball draft. For about ten seconds, I contemplated trying to take it easy, but realized that that just wasn’t going to happen. So I was stressed about this. I can’t go and take it easy. Should I not go? No, I really want to go. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
But then I got an idea.
Priceline.
Yes, Priceline. I’ve named my own price for hotels all across the country, and it’s rarely let me down. Priceline would allow me to get a hotel room for cheap, so I could get as bombed as I like and not have to worry about acting the fool in front of my dad. I could eat, shower, cry and, potentially, order a prostitute, all alone in the privacy of my little hotel room, somewhere in downtown Philadelphia. Excellent.
But ay, there’s a rub. When you name your own price on Priceline, you pick three variables: the price of the bid (duh), the minimum star rating for the hotel, the general location of the hotel. It’s this last one that gave me trouble. According to Priceline, “downtown Philadelphia” is everything from a stone’s throw from my neighborhood to a $30+ cab ride away. What I was looking for here was a cheap room – again, I just want somewhere to eat a hoagie and be drunk and take a long shower in peace, so spending $70 or $80 on the room plus taking a $30 cab is not what I’m looking for.
However, with no other recourse, I decided I would roll the dice. But I would intentionally low ball my offer, so that if I ended up with a hotel on the outer fringes of “downtown” Philadelphia, I could deal with a potentially more expensive cab ride. So I bid only $40.
And it hit.
And it hit on a hotel about a $12 cab ride away from the neighborhood.
And it hit on a hotel about a $12 cab ride away from the neighborhood that has a much higher star rating than what I was shooting for (I was aiming for “you probably won’t be murdered in this room, but only because you’re big – smaller people have definitely been murdered here,” but ended up with “oh, dude, the only way you’re getting murdered here is if it’s a freako high-class hooker that kills you.”)
And now, it is on. I get to spend all day getting bombed with some of my best buds, eat and drink and watch people get thrown off a mechanical bull, and then at the end of the evening, retire to a (moderately) swanky hotel room just a quick cab ride away from the ‘hood. Charity beer pong tourney, look the fuck out.
[By the way, just before press time I confirmed that this is an open event and all are welcome. So if you’re in Philly and looking to get hammered on Saturday afternoon, come to the Froggy Carr Club at 1429 S. Second Street (Phila. Pa 19148). As mentioned, it starts at 2pm and $40 includes (presumably draft) beer, food and t-shirt. You can find me, or ask for Floody.]
[Oh, and if you do decide to come, prepare to lose – I’m taking home the trophy for this one.]
The tourney starts at 2pm on Saturday and features unlimited food and drink (and a t-shirt!). By my calculation, my night should be over around 9:30pm (when I go out with my buddies in Philly, the shots come out early and often). Ending my night at 9:30pm is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it can make things awkward when I get home.
You see, when I go to Philly, I usually stay at my dad’s house. He has a spare bedroom that’s always freezing and causes me to sleep like the dead, which I enjoy. Also, I do like hanging out with him. But from about 8pm until 1am every night, my dad sits in his chair and watches TV and smokes cigarettes. This is absolutely, 100% non-negotiable. If there were a fire in the kitchen, he would probably wait until whatever nature show he’s watching was over before doing anything about it. 8pm to 1am is dad-in-chair time.
So it might be a little awkward when this Saturday night I nearly fall through the door at 9:30pm, slur my speech, and then commence eating a Wawa hoagie with such voracity that I quite look like the wolverine he’s currently watching on NatGeo. And then I follow this display by taking four Bayer (forgetting that I had already taken two), asking him if it’s ok that I took four Bayer and getting upset about potentially having poisoned myself, and then spend the next two hours sitting in the only shower in the house, simultaneously trying to sober up and falling in and out of consciousness and attempting, in vain, to masturbate. Don’t get me wrong – my dad knows that I drink, and he certainly has had his fair share of drunken mishaps (and you know this because you’ve all read my book, right?). But it’s one thing to know your son hits the booze pretty hard and another to see him in the kitchen struggling in vain to open a jar of mayonnaise before putting the jar down on the counter and lying down on the kitchen floor to “regain some strength” before trying again. At 9:30pm.
[Did I mention that this beer pong tournament has a twist this year, which is a mechanical bull? Hours of hanging out with my Philly buddies, drinking unlimited draft beer, playing in (and winning) what is sure to be a competitive beer pong tourney, and then riding (or, more realistically, watching people ride) a mechanical bull? Good god – I don’t think I should plan anything for Sunday outside of napping, eating or pooping.]
I really didn’t know what to do about this. I definitely, definitely wanted to take part in the tournament, having missed it previous years, as it usually coincides with my annual man weekend/fantasy baseball draft. For about ten seconds, I contemplated trying to take it easy, but realized that that just wasn’t going to happen. So I was stressed about this. I can’t go and take it easy. Should I not go? No, I really want to go. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
But then I got an idea.
Priceline.
Yes, Priceline. I’ve named my own price for hotels all across the country, and it’s rarely let me down. Priceline would allow me to get a hotel room for cheap, so I could get as bombed as I like and not have to worry about acting the fool in front of my dad. I could eat, shower, cry and, potentially, order a prostitute, all alone in the privacy of my little hotel room, somewhere in downtown Philadelphia. Excellent.
But ay, there’s a rub. When you name your own price on Priceline, you pick three variables: the price of the bid (duh), the minimum star rating for the hotel, the general location of the hotel. It’s this last one that gave me trouble. According to Priceline, “downtown Philadelphia” is everything from a stone’s throw from my neighborhood to a $30+ cab ride away. What I was looking for here was a cheap room – again, I just want somewhere to eat a hoagie and be drunk and take a long shower in peace, so spending $70 or $80 on the room plus taking a $30 cab is not what I’m looking for.
However, with no other recourse, I decided I would roll the dice. But I would intentionally low ball my offer, so that if I ended up with a hotel on the outer fringes of “downtown” Philadelphia, I could deal with a potentially more expensive cab ride. So I bid only $40.
And it hit.
And it hit on a hotel about a $12 cab ride away from the neighborhood.
And it hit on a hotel about a $12 cab ride away from the neighborhood that has a much higher star rating than what I was shooting for (I was aiming for “you probably won’t be murdered in this room, but only because you’re big – smaller people have definitely been murdered here,” but ended up with “oh, dude, the only way you’re getting murdered here is if it’s a freako high-class hooker that kills you.”)
And now, it is on. I get to spend all day getting bombed with some of my best buds, eat and drink and watch people get thrown off a mechanical bull, and then at the end of the evening, retire to a (moderately) swanky hotel room just a quick cab ride away from the ‘hood. Charity beer pong tourney, look the fuck out.
[By the way, just before press time I confirmed that this is an open event and all are welcome. So if you’re in Philly and looking to get hammered on Saturday afternoon, come to the Froggy Carr Club at 1429 S. Second Street (Phila. Pa 19148). As mentioned, it starts at 2pm and $40 includes (presumably draft) beer, food and t-shirt. You can find me, or ask for Floody.]
[Oh, and if you do decide to come, prepare to lose – I’m taking home the trophy for this one.]
