We came here to party

“You know you have 10 minutes to drink those because the bars closing”. My friend Adam and I looked at each other, expressions of shock planted firmly in place. You see where we were from the bars didn’t close until 2:00 am, we assumed it was like that everywhere so imagine our surprise finding out this particular bar was about to close in a few short minutes regardless of the fact that we had each just ordered 10 beers. We told ourselves right before ordering that we were going to show these Americans how we drink in Canada. With 4 minutes to go we had attracted a rather large crowd of spectators and I had finished my 10th and was working on Adam’s 7th. We managed to finish them all in our allotted time and our reward was a swift kick out the door as the club bouncers announced that the party was over.

We had tried to condense several hours worth of partying in those few minutes, we drank the beers hit the dance floor for a song and even met some ladies and made plans to meet up for an after party. The only problem was its hard to remember directions when we just finished plowing through 12 beers. We stumbled out into the street and were convinced we were supposed to go left and then go left and then make a left and then for good measure go left once again. At one point we stumbled into a pizza place that was closing and drukenly convinced the clerk to give us free pizza.....either that or we robbed him...im not too clear on that detail. 30 minutes later we found ourselves standing outside the same club. By now the only people remaining on the downtown streets were the homeless, the criminals and those who had drank 12 beers in 8 minutes. We did what any highly intoxicated University student on vacation would do….we hoped in our car and drove around looking for the girls we met earlier. Of course we couldn’t find the party but we did find that the sidewalks were traffic free at 3:00 am.

Up ahead we could see some hope, the lights of a convenience store were faintly visible, although blurry…perhaps due to the alcohol, perhaps due to the three homeless people we ran over on the sidewalk. Windshield wipers are not very effective at cleaning off blood splatters and squeegee pieces. The brown guy behind the counter would surely be able to offer better directions than the ones we had scrawled on a beer soaked bar napkin. As we pulled in we noticed that 2 of the three parking spots were currently occupied but thankfully we only needed one. Well, in that drunken state we actually needed one and a half but since the two cars (that we slowly and as cautiously as I have ever driven in my life pulled in between) just happened to be two police cars, we made damn sure one space was enough.

In an academy award worthy performance we excited the vehicle and walked into the store. Concentrating on every single step. Since we managed to get in and out without being arrested we assume we put on a good sobriety performance but perhaps the cops just thought it would be funny to watch and see if we drove ourselves off a bridge. The clerk wasn’t any help, he may have given us perfect directions but between the beers and his accent we ended up back at the club again. At this point the realization of a night of masturbation seemed a certainty. We decided that drinking and driving was probably not a good idea since the only vehicles remaining on the streets were the police and ambulances and if we continued to drive we would eventually find ourselves receiving services from one of them. So we parked and decided to walk again. Now was that a left, left left followed by a left? Ok, let’s try that.

By this point the alcohol had reached its full potential and this will require me to make up the rest of this story because the truth is I remember parking the car and then waking up in a field missing a shoe……and an Adam.

Since I get to make this part up I believe what happened was, the ladies who were desperate to be with someone as gorgeous as I…continued to drive around until they spotted Adam and I passed out in the middle of the expressway off ramp. They could not agree on who got to be with me and so they rolled Adam off into the safety of a bus shelter and took me with them. The scent of college girls making out brought me enough consciousness to be able to sexually pleasure all four of them at the same time. They begged me to stay but I was worried about Adam and left to go find him. After 2 hours of walking I grew tired and decided to rest my eyes….for just a second. While I was sleeping a stray dog mistook me for a fire hydrant but the fact that I just had sex with four gorgeous women made getting pissed on by a dog all worth it. The evidence all points to this being true…..well it also points to a slight possibility that I wandered off to take a piss, fell down with my pants unbuckled and pissed all over my drunken self.

I decided that walking to the right and making a bunch of rights would help me retrace my steps. After 10 minutes of walking I realized the sidewalks were not nearly as clean as I had thought when I walked on them with TWO shoes. After 20 minutes of stumbling around aimlessly I began to hope I would find a homeless person passed out in an alley….so I could steal his fucking shoe! I tried to think…..where could Adam be? I asked myself, “if I was drunk out of my mind last night and got split up from my friend in a strange city…where would I go”…..after pondering this for several minutes I realized that apparently the answer is I would throw away one shoe and go sleep in a park.

After an hour of wandering shoeless through the streets I recalled that I had a cell phone in my pocket….and Adam knew the phone number. Perhaps he managed to locate a phone and left me a message explaining where we was. I called my voicemail and sure enough, you have 2 new messages…..

Message 1, “Hey budd itshhhh Adam, I garbellled narrw and then you dishhhaperrrded on me……..I……whenear a shiiine mannnn……petco…shawdoomizedem…..g’ner a drank way too many beersh man….so come get me whenyougetthish messhage”

Message 2, “I forgotto shay…..i have your shoe”

I’m pretty sure it was Adam but it may have been the convenience store clerk. The only word I could be sure of in the first message was Petco. So Adam was near a Petco store. Now all I had to do was find the nearest Petco. The first lady I came across had no idea where Petco was and she accused me of touching her woo woo when she was 12. I decided not to argue and she pushed her shopping cart full of belongings off in the other direction.

Like any good friend worried about his missing friend in a strange new city I decided the best course of action at this point was to go into the Denny’s and ask for directions….just as soon as I finished a grand slam breakfast. My eggs went down surprisingly well considering I was worried that my friend Adam may have been sodomized behind a petco. In fact perhaps he was still being sodomized. I decided the smartest course of action would be to let him wait another hour. This way if he was being anally raped the rapist would have moved on by then.

The manger at Denny’s was surprisingly knowledgeable about the local petco, leading me to deduce that he was heavy into gerbilling. As it turns out the Petco was a short 10 minute walk from Denny’s……30 minutes if you’re missing a shoe. By 9:05 AM, I spotted Adam, curled up underneath a picnic table outside the petco. Our celebratory reunification was short lived when we realized we had no idea where our car was. But on the plus side I did get my shoe back. Eventually we did locate our car but that’s a whole other adventure. I have come to terms with the fact that I will never know what happened after we parked the car that night, I wont know whether we would have scored with those college girls, nor will I know how we ended up getting separated but I sure would like to know how the fuck Adam ended up with my shoe?

Like any reasonably intelligent and relatively sober university students on vacation in a strange city we decided that the right thing to do would be return to that club later that night and start all over again. Only this time we’d leave ourselves 20 minutes to finish the beers. Its amazing to me how your ability to learn is so diminished when you’re in college.