Patience part 1
“1967, I’m onstage at the Fillmore East. Jimi Hendrix is backstage, throwing up. Mama Cass is stewing up a pot of her famous spaghetti pie. Janis Joplin is washing dishes and throwing up. And then the cops bust in.”
-Jack Black (Tenacious D)
Patience is a virtue that I’ve never been able to wrap my head around. On occasion, such a reminder isn’t bad. I mean, counting to ten instead of immediately punching some asshole when he spills a drink on you is helpful for leading a long and fulfilling life, but what if you just met some girl? Is patience always the best route?
There’s the
“I’ll get to know the girl first and maybe through my sweetness, sensitivity, subtle yet easily explainable hints, and patiently listening to her issues with boyfriends…we’ll somehow end up dating” approach or you could go with the “Hey, you seem cool and I fucking rule, so you wanna hang out” approach.
Guess which one will be crying into his pillow and posting three-year-old pictures on plentyoffish.com?
So with the ‘go-with-it-and-figure-out-the-consequences-later’ attitude riding my brain, I downed three beers in about ten minutes waiting for the Wife to get ready for the Australian Pink Floyd concert. Since most of the original members of Pink Floyd are now playing the Great Gig in the Sky, they have licensed the Aussies to represent them around the world. I wanted to make sure I was comfortably numb for this gig (see what I did there?).
Five minutes later, another two domestic beers were swirling around my gut. They were going down too quickly, I had to make a squinty-eyed, bitter face because my piehole couldn’t handle all of the burning carbonation. By the time the Wife was ready I’d poured down another two, but didn’t feel a thing. I’m invincible, this being half-English bit is finally starting to pay off. Now would be a good time to make obvious foreshadowing even more obvious. This would not end well.
In addition to the Wife and I, our group had another couple, “Dexter” and “Morgan,” and a friend from law school, “Alan”. We decided to warm-up at one of the few places in this muggy, angry city that doesn’t charge you your first-born child for a Keystone Light. Though not at the same self-hating rate, I kept drinking aggressively because the previous seven beers had seemingly no effect. Awesome, my alcoholic ancestry has basically built me for drinking, I’m invincible.
At a certain point in the consumption, the talkative side of me crawls out first. Slowly letting the world know that, hey I’m feeling great. Now usually I try to go through life speaking as little as possible because…well, I think it’s kind of a waste of time and think don’t particularly enjoy it that much, which may be a shock to some. But when the drinks hit the system, the blood thins, my hearing seems filtered, and my vision starts to blur lines, I become all smiles and witty fucking one-liners.
“Time for another one,” Dexter asked as he pointed his empty bottle at my sweaty one.
Mine was still half full, but I’m not only impatient, I’m proactive, “Yeah dude, thanks” I said and raised my glass. The condensation started dripping down my arm, which was a nice counter to the oppressive heat.
Comfort didn’t last too long, as the familiar sting in the bladder was rearing its inconvenient head, already? This doesn’t bode well. Dexter was back far too soon, a third of my beer was still sitting in the bottle, mocking me. The beer wasn’t the only one.
“You’re not done yet? When’d you grow a vagina?”
“Whatever dude, I’m like nine beers ahead of you AND I’ve eaten nothing. Plus, this shit tastes like a combination of Nyquil and death.”
“What does that have to do with you letting your beer get warm. It’s free drink it.”
“Touche,” I replied and strained to swallow the last third, “I’ve got to use the facilities.”
Standing up, the folly in pushing my system was apparent. Fuck me, I thought as a slalomed off the wall and the bar’s patient customers to the poorly lit bathroom in the back. Oh god, I should’ve paced myself, my brain screamed at me as I washed my hands. Fuck it, I’m too far gone now…I might as well push this night as far as it’ll go and see what happens. And with that I took a deep breath, shook my head, and pushed myself, as steadily as possible back to my wet, warm beer and the (from my perspective) mocking smiles of our group.
This will definitely not go well, I smiled to myself as I took three long, painful gulps of the beer with an unpronounceable name.
To be continued…
