Jamie and I stumbled into a tradition of doing absinthe strike out shots at a country bar cleverly located above a gothic dungeon looking establishment, and below an open air rooftop club.
So, despite our vows to not get criminally drunk, Jamie and I went to the bar we’d drank out of absinthe two weeks prior. They still hadn’t re-stocked so we slammed shots elsewhere, bounced to a Flaming Dr. Pepper shot or two, and ended up walking behind a crowd of 9 or 10 women in evening gowns and pregnant looking stomachs. A random man on the street commented to his friend that he thought it was fake. Jamie, ever the man of class, retorted that he knew they were. Upon question he simply said, “because I’ll be throwing that pillow on my floor later tonight.” We all laughed.
The false pregos were heading into the same bar we were destined for, and instantly I knew why there were dressed as such. A friend, Melanie, had invited us to a post tournament rugby social in which she and her team were dressing as denizens of the 1980s. The false pregos, I decided, were an entirely different team. I was right.
Inside the bar we went from beers to shots to shots to beers to shots to someone informing us that the venue was changing, as per the tiny piece of paper they had. So we, now 30 strong, bounced jovially to some other bar. I’d tell you the name, but everything gets too choppy.
In between flirting with random girls and hounding the bartender to write down drink recipes, Jamie and I consumed somewhere in the realm of seven or eight rounds. We harassed locals. We demanded to know why a Latino looking individual had no resemblance to his Korean sister. We did drop shot after drop shot and danced like bastards. We partied.
We changed bars again. This time across the street.
If you’ve never been to 6th street, allow me to explain. Austin, like most towns, has many streets and those many streets have many bars. It just so happens that a horrible College Town-esque conglomerate of shitty bars and shittier clubs reside entirely on 5th, 6th, and 7th streets. On Friday and Saturday nights, 6th street is blocked off from all vehicular traffic and opened to pedestrians. So you’ll end up seeing people standing in groups in the middle of the street, conversing on nothing. Or police, huddled in threes and fours, waiting for someone to decide they wish to spend the evening in jail. You’ll also end up seeing drunkards devouring hot dogs from a cart at all hours. And then you’ll see me, standing on line to go to a bar, surrounded by a man of Herculean size, women dressed as 80’s glam stars, and a fleet of pregnant debutants.
One of the false pregos walked nearby and I jabbed her stomach with a quick left. She laughed, we flirted, and a drunken traveler stumbled up and demanded to know why they were all faking being pregnant. I grabbed the false prego by the waist, hugged her close, and told the man that this was my wife and she was carrying my child and he should be more respectful. If you’d asked me then I had no idea why. If you’d ask me now, I only know the results. Ends justify the means?
He bought it, head held low, and walked away.
6 hours later after bailing on everyone from that rugby social to go drink solo with Jamie, 5 hours after hitting up a final bar, 3 hours after missing the house party entirely, two hours after eating at a kebab stand, an hour after jumping in a bicycle taxi from hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel looking for vacancy, and thirty minutes after throwing down the worst Farsi I’ve ever spoken to a night concierge at the Four Seasons, I was staying in a 1500 a night suite. An hour later I was still drunk, naked, and lying next to a girl named Lydia.
Who, truth be told, was not pregnant after all. I know, because her dress and accompanying pillow were thrown on the floor next to me.
*Recovery of combined debit and credit expenses would put him and I in the realm of $700 spent on liquor alone that evening.
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