Do they make a six hour chip?

On top of my growing love affair with Yuengling I recently found a vodka that tastes like coffee. Not tastes like coffee with vodka in it, it tastes like coffee. Period. I give it two months before I'm standing in front of a room full of strangers starting sentences with, "Hi, my name is..." and telling them how long it's been since my last sweet snort of hooch, which I will lie about of course.

I'm not complaining, it'll totally be worth it.

I'll have you Walking Spanish

So as is my way I recalled a thing that happened to me sometime after the fact (my memory will come and go as it pleases, wandering away for wild adventures before finally finding its way home to settle down) and when it popped back in my head I blurted it out to the first person I saw, which was Taco.

"Hey", I said, "Did I tell you I got hammered and stole a pirate hat from a liquor store?"

And so it began.

Demands for a complete retelling, pictures of the glorious thing itself, getting other people to demand pictures until I just couldn't take it anymore. So I sent those out to those as asked after them but then I got to thinking that such a fine tale of daring should be shared and passed down to future generations.

So we're out sailing the seas (at a bar) and decide it's lame and to take all the cool people (us) over to Mike's to just hang out. We drop the women off and we hearty menfolk drive to the liquor store to raid it for it's boozey goodness as I'd not had my fill yet.

We arrive (flourish of trumpets) and storm into the joint, as is our way, looking for our chosen plunder. On our way down an aisle I see a Captain Morgan display and on it, a hat. Not just any hat my friends, an awe inspiring cheap plastic pirate hat. It was love at first sight.

"Mike!", I yelled (because, Mike). "Dude!" (because, sometimes, dude). "Look at this hat!"

I put it on and instantly I could sense it had been waiting for me. It was MINE.

Mike turned and, seeing me in all my piratey glory, bellowed, "That is the GREATEST fucking thing I've ever seen!" Truly he is wise.

We raid and plunder the store for our desired libations and boldly stride up to the register, me with my new hat in its rightful place.

"This hat is awesome," I said.

"Look at how awesome that fucking hat is!" Mike added.

They looked upon me and were appropriately moved by my mighty visage.

"Look how great I look in it."

"Look at how fucking gorgeous he is in that thing!" It should be noted that Mike, like so many straight men before him, is confused by the feelings I give him in his swimsuit area.

"I'm taking it with me, obviously."

"There's no WAY he's leaving without it!"

Now you might be saying to yourself, But...stealing is wrong! and you'd be correct. Mostly. There are situations that warrant a little misdemeanor larceny. Some even that demand it. This was one of those times. If police had been present they surely would have applauded me and told everyone to calm down and, if it came to it, stand in front of a judge and declare my actions naught but joy filled shenanigans. Though of course I'm not sure how shenanigans are covered under the law. Does the 3 strikes rule come into play? Are previous shenanigans held against you or in your favor? It's a mystery.

Anyway, we paid for our booze (a noble act on our part, I feel) and headed for the door.

One of the still stunned employees blurted out, "So...you're taking the hat?"

"Yeah. Later."

So I told you all of that to tell you this. I got this cool plastic pirate hat now. It's awesome.

This isn't anywhere near Crystal Lake is it?

So after years of trying my sister and her husband finally talked me into going camping with them. In the past I've been meh about it because I don't care for most of their friends and at least one or two of these people tend to go as well. This time it was my sister's birthday and she laid on the pleases pretty thick (plus my drinkin' buddy was going and I was given to understand that I could drink as much as I wanted AND have control of the fire all weekend) so I figured why not. I packed a bag, a shitload of beer and off I went.

I went up on Friday morning with my brother in law so set up camp and my sister and drinking buddy came later in the evening. It didn't take long before I was completely lost as I have no sense of direction and am easily turned around. On the way up I went over what to do in case of machete killer attack in great detail as I feel this is very important information to have in the woods and I really wanted to feel like I was contributing, y'know? It turned out to be important because I totally spotted the lair of the aforementioned machete killer on the way to our site. Yay me.

Anyway some of us got fairly hammered the first night and it turned out that I should have gotten very hammered first thing Saturday. Have you ever been in a campground shower? Yeesh. It's much like a prison shower except with water pressure so high that I got what would normally be a $500 exfoliation treatment for free. I'm not sure if that's a win or lose. That night after many, many more beers and much playing with fire and good eating and general merriment me and my drinking buddy went for a trek through the woods. At night. Exceedingly dark night. Right past the lair of the machete killer!! What the hell man!? Rookie mistake! No excuses! Luckily he was out gutting someone else but if he'd been there I would have deserved his swift and brutal attention.

All in all it was fun though I literally did not sleep at all for the entire weekend. Just couldn't do it. I drank enough to stun a water buffalo and kept a fire burning for an entire weekend though and that is something indeed. I am...a camper.

My drink and the getting on of same

These days I'm mostly a social drinker. Saturday nights when I play poker I'll one or two beers to loosen up, three if it's been a really awful week. Some weeks require more than this. A lot more. After swapping calls and texts with a few people during the week we decided that this last week was one of those. A true shit week that seemed to have it in for us all. Clearly it was a sign. We needed to blow off some steam. To grab that pressure release valve and haul that sumbitch around hard and fast.

We quickly devised a clever and intricate plan which I will now share with you.

The Plan

1. Go out.
2. Drink.
3. Drink quite a lot more.
4. Give it a good hard think.
5. Decide on having more drinks.
6. WOOHOO!

It's a work of genius isn't it? You'd think that it's too elaborate for us to pull off and let me tell you we had our doubts. We thought it might be too big, too grand an adventure. I'll admit it, we were scared. But did that stop us? No! We bravely set out to make The Plan a reality.

My friends I am pleased to announce that we were successful beyond our wildest hopes.

I haven't been that hammered for long and long and, Maker bless me, there wasn't the slightest hint of nausea which is weird because we were packing away a wide variety of food. Highlights included the crab dip, jerk chicken, a variety of chicken wings and what's a party without some deep fried cheese? The Old Man was looking after me for sure and many thanks you wily and magnificent bastard. I haven't laugh that much or that hard for a very long time and I really needed it.

Note: when you're completely faced, never play pool against the designated driver. He'll cheat. Somehow when I was trying to break he made me miss the cue four times in a row. Sneaky git.

Anyway, I wouldn't normally bore you lot with a drunk story but I don't have many good nights (or days for that matter) and when I do I like to share. Also, I heartily recommend that everyone get a friend that you can collapse into a drunken heap with, arms and legs twined together like a string of Christmas lights that have been sitting in a box all year, and go to sleep with without any of the bullshit sexual tension that normally keeps people from that kind of thing.

Bonus: zero hangover.