Results

The results from last night's beer and wing extravaganza are as follows:

25 BBQ wings, 25 Buffalo wings, 8 PBR's, 1 glass of Chardonnay and 1 order of fries. Total price: $21. As I stood up at the bar with my dad as he was about to pay the bill, neither of us could help but criticize our "third party" and her choice of a $6 glass of chardonnay. Subsequently, the fries were also her idea, but they were a strong effort so we let that one slide. But our bill would have been an impressive $13 had we gnashed as a pair and not a trio. Oh, that reminds me...

My mom had the quote of the century as we ate last night. First of all, my father invited his co-worker Steve (mentioned previously on this blog) and his fiance Brenda to partake in this immensely cheap meal option. Steve is a transplant from Albany, NY and he's a lifelong, die hard Yankee fan. He told us the touching story (I barfed silently as he recounted it) of his grandfather and how his favorite Yankee was Joe D. and that he was born a Yankee fan, etc, etc. Anyway, my mother turns to Steve and asks him the following question with a straight face: "How come you haven't converted to a Sox fan yet?" I scolded her immediately and then enjoyed the look of sheer contempt on Steve's face as he fought back the PBR that desperately wanted to spurt from his goatee-lined mouth in retort of the asinine comment.

Aside from that remark, the night was a rousing success. The wings were fantastic and blew away my expectations and the PBR was ice cold and endless. I had a rather unfounded appreciation for the Beverly Rotary Men's Softball team that monopolized the entire right portion of the bar, which included a dude whose jersey had a backwards #2 on it. No one else had a number as such so it was clearly a printing error. But he embraced it. Upon entering, he approached the team and announced himself by walking backwards into the group of players and exclaiming "make way for the backwards 2!" as he pointed at the number on his back. My guess is that this guy is either the funny guy on the team and he pulls this shit all the time or he's the guy everyone hates that CONSTANTLY calls himself "the backwards 2". He might say such things as "what would the backwards 2 do in this situation?", or "dude, that's not cool with the backwards 2". I'm going with the latter.

It kind of figures that I stumbled upon this deal of all deals just a scant few weeks before departing on my journey to end all journeys. On the other hand, I will probably be planting my ass on a bar stool at the Pickled Onion in Beverly every remaining Tuesday night that I'm in town until I embark, so I'm not sure my health conscience would be too keen on anything beyond that. The Onion is one of those throwback bars when you look at the clientele and the help. The bartenders are locals who treat everyone like a stepsister. It's cordial but don't expect anything for free. The clientele all smoke, and even though it's a smoke-free joint, the whole place smells like butts because there's always someone puffing on cigarette just outside the door. Here's how these "bar smokers" are identified:

1. The employee. If you can't determine the bartender on a butt break, look for the guy taking furious drags with vigor. He may or may not be in conversation, depending on what kind of night he's having. But if he's a townie bartender, he's probably out there selling nickel bags and texting high school girls, too.

2. The thinker. For some reason, there's always a guy outside the bar smoking alone. He's leaning against the wall with one leg resting on the wall, knee bent. He looks down at the curb most often and won't say anything. He smokes slow and long and exhales through his nose. If you approach him, he'll pick up the pace of his smoke and give terse answers until the butt is finished. He doesn't want to talk to you.

3. The pack of bar chicks. They wear low-cut shirts and smoke Marby Lights. They smoke in pairs or in threes, never more than three though. They take really short pulls on the butt and smoke it like they're kissing it. You know what I mean. None of them inhale and when one actually does by mistake, she puts the butt out and calls it gross. Then she goes inside and orders a Cape Codder (Coddah).

Yes, I used to be one of these smokers outside the bar, and I ultimately fell into either the thinker category or the unmentioned 'two averages dudes trying to look cool' category. It took me ten years to realize that smoking doesn't in fact make you cool, but you can't put a price on ten years of thinking you're cool. You just can't. I mean, have you ever sat down and thought about the things you've thought made you cool over the course of your life? For me, it's a pretty short list...I hope. We're talking about such things are Skidz, which topped my Christmas list in 1990 and 1991 along with IOU's. I went through a phase that lasted about 10 years during which I thought wearing my cap backwards made me cool. That phase went dormant in 1997 and has recently resurfaced, since I've rediscovered my hobby of collecting New Era fitted caps (my collection now consists of the following: LA Dodgers, Cleveland, Toronto throwback, Atlanta solid navy and Chicago Cubs solid royal). If you want to add to my collection, I'm a 7 1/8. I have always thought and still think plaid makes me look cool, but the one person who matters most to me thinks it makes me look like a retard. So I don't often venture into the world of plaid. And I'm sure Lauren's right about my retard status when wearing plaid. I mean, what's my rush to dress like an octogenarian? I also think suspenders are super cool. Retards for sale, getcha retards heeyah.

I've added a new link...it appears simply as '10'. It's another great blog that I highly recommend...I also respect anyone that closes out his blogs with the salutation "one love". Good things...good things.

Une Amour,

French

p.s.-recommended TV for this evening: Game 3 of the CWS, #8 Georgia v. unranked Fresno State. Truly enjoyable to watch these kids play, trust me.