Okay, eight days is long enough. Here is last weekend in a neatly wrapped package…

Friday was pretty tame by most standards, considering it was a Friday, I was in Columbus by happy hour, and our usual kick-ass bar had turned into a bad early ’90s dance club. Seems that someone thought it would be a good idea to turn a bar with a maximum capacity that couldn’t possibly exceed 150, maybe 175 if you mix in a few anorexics, and have a reunion of some 240 people (plus the regular patrons that were already at the bar). What this turned into is finding a table, close to the bar for easy enough access to refills, then deal with one time frat punks pretending they owned the place, which included practically sitting in my lap at times, and using our table as a final resting place for their empties. We put in a solid three or so hours there, and the final tab for 6 or 9 of us came to roughly $37 plus tip. Reason 3,482 why Amy1 at Gibby’s is the best bartender in the world, slightly ahead of Amy2 at Gibby’s, with Kim from Tavern in the picture in third (mostly because she’s hot and likes to share shots). Throw in some grilled chicken fingers and curly fries (at seven bucks and change, it’s still the best dinner deal in Ohio), and it was a good night. Top it off with a stop at the Pointe Tavern (featured on Comedy Central’s Insomniac with Dave Attell), and it was an even better night. With the promise of troughs full of alcohol to come on Saturday.

The football-related part of Saturday has already been discussed, so we can skip to the postgame. After a beer at the car waiting for traffic to thin, and a trip to pick up/move cars and drop off some equipment, we headed for the bar. Less than a block away, we find out we get to play taxi for the night (well, Pete plays taxi, I just sat in traffic with him) as Joel finds out that finding a cab on OSU’s campus the day of the OSU-Michigan game is like finding a black guy in South Dakota. It ain’t happening. (My apologies to black men in South Dakota, this originally a Minnesota joke, but with the Twins, T’Wolves and Vikings, not to mention half of Prince, it just wasn’t working.) In the trip through throngs of drunken coeds (and I think there were some guys in the crowd, too) to pick up Joel, Michelle and Nate, a very intoxicated (and sometimes pantsless) Nate got lost from the group and was left behind. Kind of like that scene in “Finding Nemo” where all the cute little fish die, except there were no fish, and I can only imagine that there is nothing “cute” about a half-naked Nate.

The crowd B. Hampton’s (a nice bar, with GREAT happy hour prices, but I never got a good read on the clientele in my seven years in Columbus) was nice, but getting increasingly cramped as the crowd from campus spread south, so we bailed for what we figured would be a less-crowded bar with better food and drink access. Hitting Club 185 in German Village, we found out that we were right. It was much less crowded, and food and drink were on us quickly. Unfortunately, this lasted for about 45 minutes and we were back to drunks trying to sit in our lap. It was college all over again.

This is the first “I have to share this” moment of the night, really. When we decided that it was time for the five of us to get some food, never did we imagine that it would involve chicken quesadillas, a cheeseburger, a bacon and mushroom DOUBLE cheeseburger and a large pepperoni pizza. And when the pizza was gone, that Pete and I would almost simultaneously utter “I could go for another pizza”, and flag down a waitress like I was looking for a cab in the rain. Seriously, I knew I was hungry, but if Colombia was known for its double cheeseburger trafficking, I was Tony Montana.

With the food a distant memory, its time for the first napkin game of the night. Stoli Raspberry, Absolut Mandarin, and Malibu. Not pleasant, but not bad for something that you could wax a floor with. It was then that I made the decision that quite possibly changed the weekend. And almost got us killed. But it changed the weekend.

(Read this part in your best “guy from NFL films” voice.)

With the troops dragging, and the end of the night in sight, ready to call it a day and retire to their bunks, one brave soldier rose above the call of duty, rallied his men (and women) to continue the fight. After all, it was merely 9pm, and there was plenty of life left in this night.

Okay, stop with the voice thing, already!

I get the group to stop at a townie bar, on the way home, but still far from bed. Paulie’s Westburgh Inn (or something like that) on Trabue Road in Columbus. The 60 year old woman that greeted us at the door was a sure sign of things to come. She asked each of us if we were the cab driver, some of us twice. Give her some music, and granny starts dancing. Then talking to us like we weren’t laughing uncontrollably at her. Then lets us know that she was going to take off her shirt. Fortunately, and despite Joel’s pleas, she remained dressed, but had found a friend. Joel bought her a drink, Pete tried to call her a cab. Only the drink was successful, and it gave us free reign to make fun of her for the rest of the night. (Picture possibly forthcoming.)

The second and final napkin game of the night came here, Kessler’s, Cutty Sark and Frangelica. Yum! Or, um, something like that. A few more beers here, and we headed for home. After a stop at another bar.

This bar was best described by Joel in the parking lot. “It’s like El Camino, El Camino, El Camino, Audi, El Camino…” Pretty accurate, actually. But it was a nice bar inside, beers and Jager/cherry bombs were enjoyed, and a little video crack was enjoyed, until the rednecks started to rumble. A broken pool cue, a bloody nose, a shirtless man, and a girl with a bloody face later, and they close the bar. This was our cue to leave, and the people coming in talking about a shirtless man in the parking lot going to get his guns was our cue to leave a hell of a lot faster.

Man, this is getting long. And I even skipped the Ron Artest fight from Friday night, and I’m sure a couple of lines from the old lady at the previous bar.

Now after midnight, everyone doing pretty well, we stop at Pete’s house to tell his absolutely wonderful and ever so gracious wife April that we could have died. Or at least gotten blood splattered on us. Or near us. Maybe. At this point, we decide its time to hit another bar, April opts out and we hit the road for Tavern.

Tavern is short for “Run of the Mill Tavern”, the bar that sponsored my softball team for 4 or 5 years, and was the site of the “victory lap” after the Browns beat the Jaguars on a Hail Mary in 2002.

All I remember here was another cherry bomb, two Washington Apple shots, a couple more beers, and Pete making girls cry with his inadvertant joke about “Stan the Jager Man”, who apparently died at or near that bar in the last 4 months. Not necessarily the best timing, I guess. But we did meet Liz, who promised to read this site, and I think we even got her to pick up another drink after her friends left to meet her at her own house. That’s what we like in our group, a real trooper!

So after thinking about bed at 9pm, we closed that bar, and pulled back into Pete’s around 3am, once again waking April up, this time with softball in the driveway. Somehow she put up with our loud drunkeness for awhile, made us chili, and we all went to bed. Have I mentioned how wonderful she is?

Like I said, I’m sure there’s alot more, but I spent long enough waiting to post this, and I’ve taken up an awful lot of space already. But its documented and now its time for bed.