Well, readers, it’s Friday, November 09, 2007, an important day in
the history of PIC, because we arbitrarily chose it to be so.
Anyway, since I just woke up, I don’t have a whole lot to say, so
this is all the introduction you’re getting.
10:00AM: Alarm goes off.
10:01: Alarm gets turned off and set for 11:00.
11:00: Alarm goes off.
11:01: Snooze.
11:10: Alarm goes off.
11:11: Snooze.
11:20: Alarm goes off.
11:21: I arise and greet the world with a yawn and a fart.
11:25: Hop in the shower. Do all the
usual things a young male does in the shower. Use your imagination.
11:40: Get out of the shower.
"One of the bartenders challenges my drinking prowess. We
decide to do shots until someone quits or vomits."
11:41: Prepare
for the day. This includes brushing teeth, putting on clothes, and
putting two 24s of Natty Light that have become warm on my floor
into the fridge.
11:50: Meet the girlfriend for lunch at a Mediterranean place on
campus. I have the lamb gyro, but don’t know whether to pronounce it “jI-ro” or
“hero,” but I pick hero and say it confidently. The people behind the counter
are completely indifferent.
1:15PM: Go to class. My advisor teachers this class, so I sit in the
front and actually participate. The kids behind me probably think I’m a tool.
Fuck ‘em.
2:05: Out of class—I throw a 24 of Natty into my trunk, then drive to
Fry’s and get some controllers for the shiny new Wii that I got in the mail
yesterday. They’re more expensive than I thought, and having just come off a
pretty bad losing day of online poker, my inner Jew only permits me to buy one.
3:00: Back on campus, I drop the beer off at a friend’s dorm, then
park my car and walk back to meet him.
3:15: We try to find ping pong balls to warm up for our IM Beirut
match.
This is probably a good time to explain IM Beirut, since, if you’re getting
to know PIC writers, you should get to know the thing that
single-handedly takes up more of my time, money, and liver function than
anything else I do in college.
Here at Stanford, we run an intramural beer pong league (and if anyone in it
reads that, they’ll castrate me for using the plebian name instead of Beirut).
Really, this is worth its own article, but the short version is that there’s a
regular season, where you set up your own matches against other teams, then a
postseason NCAA style tournament for the best 32 teams who have played at least
5 matches. Matches are always at least best of 3, but for the most part
respectable teams never play best of 7s. Also, we play 12 cup, which consists of
two 6 racks on either side of the table.
My team, aptly named Team Bukkake (if you don’t know what that is, try
Google image search, especially if you’re at work), is set to face off
against a lesser opponent in a best of 7. When we arrive at the lounge, we see a
couple of kids we know (and had beaten earlier in a best of 5 at 10AM, right
before my 11AM class) playing a match. They win quickly, and their opponents
propose a quick best of 3 before we play our other match. Normally, we wouldn’t
play less than 5, but we have to warm up anyway, so we beat them 2-0 by no less
than 7 cups each game. (I’m really good at this. Seriously, I may be inferior
academically to every last kid at this school, but I can put a ping pong ball in
a red cup from nine feet away like nobody’s business. Sorry, I had to get that
out.)
4:00: Our opponents arrive, and we dispatch them quickly in games one
and two, then go on to lose game three as I suck it up. Thankfully, my partner
stays strong and we go on to win 4-1. I am now mildly intoxicated.
5:00: I make my way to Jerry, a campus house named after a Mr. Garcia
with whom
Nate might be familiar. Here, I am to bartend their special dinner with a
couple of my friends. I’m not sure if other colleges have special dinners, so
here’s the quick explanation: somewhere along the line, somebody decided that
it’d be a cool tradition if once a quarter, every house took a big portion of
their budget and spent it on really good food and lots of booze. Sometimes I
love tradition. Anyway, the position of bartender is often unpaid but always
rewarded with as much of said food and liquor as the bartenders can handle. In
our case, this is a lot.
5:05: I start making drinks, but they’re all given stupid nicknames to
go along with the theme of the dinner (fairy tales), and I’m thus forced to
refer to a guide every time someone asks me for something. I make myself a
tequila sunrise to ease my pain.
5:10: One of my co-bartenders claims his tequila sunrises are better
than mine. I disagree. We find a hot girl to judge them. She declares mine to be
better presented (I know how to float my grenadine), but his to be better
overall. I ease my pain by taking my sunrise back from her and drinking it.
5:15: By now, things are generally uneventful. I’m acquainted with the
list of drinks, and I’ve decided to go down it, making one of each for myself.
Most of them are what the average American teenage male would call gay, and
there’s one with Monster in it that just tastes like asshole.
5:30: Gay or not, the collective effect of the liquor is doing some
damage. Still, the people clamor for me to make them drinks. This may have less
to do with the quality of my drinks and more to do with they fact that they want
to be drunk, but damn if it’s not good for the self-esteem.
6:00: Dinner time! Tonight’s fare consists of steak, potatoes,
asparagus, and some other stuff that’s not as delicious as steak, potatoes, and
asparagus. Since we’re bartenders and not guests, we relegate ourselves upstairs
to the bar, away from the dining room.
6:02: We start making drinks.
6:04: We start double-fisting said drinks.
6:10: One of the other bartenders
challenges my drinking prowess. We decide to solve this with Bacardi shots
until someone quits or vomits. I almost never vomit (and not in that good way,
where I’m going to end up in the hospital sooner or later because my body
refuses to push a poison out of my system), and the mockery I’d face if I quit
would be unbearable, so this will turn out badly.
6:15: Shot one.
6:20: Two.
6:22: For some reason, we both decide to start drinking Monsters. Not
sure why this seems like a good idea.
6:30: Three. Some people come up, so we take a brief break to mix them
drinks. We also take this break to mix ourselves drinks. My tequila sunrises are
starting to contain less and less sunrise.
6:40: Four.
6:45: Five, but we’re forced to stop as people are returning in larger
numbers and we must make drinks for them. This continues for about an hour or
so. Things are beginning to get very fuzzy around the edges.
7:30ish: Somehow, I am in one of my friends’ cars, and she’s driving
us back to my apartment. When these people all come to my apartment, it only
means one thing.
8:00: I am in my room, which is
filled with a smoky haze.
8:30: The same friend who gave us the ride cooks me eggs. She is a
goddess.
10:30: I stumble out of my room.
6:00AM: I wake up in my girlfriend’s bed. For some reason, I’m not
hung over. This is good, but I can’t sleep, so I decide to go back to my room
and sleep there.
6:03: A revelation – I’m not hung over because I’m still drunk. I vow
to drink water.
6:05: I get into my room. One of my friends is passed out in my bed,
which, I’d forgotten, has no sheets or blankets. He’s covered with my towel.
6:10: I decide to get some fresh air and go outside. It’s cold
outside, so I sit in my car, recline the seat, crank up the heat, and turn the
radio on. It’s surprisingly pleasant.
7:00: I go back to my girlfriend’s room and manage to fall asleep.
11:00: I wake up. I am no longer still drunk—this is apparent because
I feel like death.
5:00PM: I still feel like death, but here I am, at my computer, typing
away. That’s how much I love you all.
Such is my life.
Now, I must go get prepared for a relatively nice dinner at which
I must pretend I don’t feel like there’s something burrowing its way
out of my skull. Anyway, now you should go read all the other PIC
writers, who I’m sure wrote about virtuous experiences that all
involve going to mass and community service:
www.pointsincase.com/get-to-know-pic.htm
