Drinking Like a Degenerate

While thinking about what this morning's topic would be I remembered a long night of drinking that took place in august. It was by no means a normal night, the night began at a friends house where we each drank a few bottles of Boone's Farm. I believe the vintage du jour was Strawberry Hill, my personal favorite in the product line. In years to come I believe that the nights I will look back at from my college days and remember above all else are the nights where we drink like homeless people, an activity which certainly takes years off of our lives. Nights focused on the cheapest things in the liquor store might not sound as alluring and glamorous as my typical night out, but this is a story of the American dream condensed into a single evening.

It was a Thursday night, I remember because Thursdays were the days that we would all get drunk and hold dance parties in the living room. We started around ten and hung out at the house until around midnight, at which point we walked down to a local bar and proceeded to start ordering drinks. The progression from vagabond to citizen started here with a bud light, at $2 a bottle you really can't beat Bruno's pricing. As the hours passed and the alcohol took its hold, I decided to throw my homeless days out of the window and move into high society drinking. The drink was scotch, Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks with a lime was the call and the feeling was unmistakable success. To drink Johnnie Blue is a privilege and an honor, I am reminded of this with every gorgeously peaty sip. The aroma of fresh lime interlaced with the smoothest scotch in the bar is one that, once experienced for the first time, is longed for for the rest of your life.

At this point in the evening I had managed to transition my drinking from the finest offerings of Boone's Farm to the flagship of the Johnnie Walker range, but I wasn't done yet. We made our way to the palms where things were about to change in a very big way. I walked up to the bar feeling alive and ready for anything. I generally wasn't a fan of the Palms, I had always felt the ultra inflated egos of the alpha males who frequented it was a huge detriment to the establishment, but this night little could get me down. I looked over the selection behind the bar to figure out what I could possibly drink to best the scotch I had been drinking for a few hours. It was at this time that I noticed a bottle menu resting by the cash register, the bartender made his way over to me and asked what I would like. My response was brief and to the point, "A menu please," it was about to get interesting I could feel it. A quick glance over the menu left me in shock, I had never bought a bottle in this city before and had never bothered to take a look at the prices, everything appeared to be on clearance.

My smile grew to a full blown grin as I made my selection. "A bottle of Dom Perignon please." The bartender looked befuddled, rightfully so I suppose as I was wearing a tshirt and shorts and had just ordered the finest champagne in the house. As soon as it hit him he quickly turned and got a VIP hostess who would take care of me. I was whisked through the crowd and shown to my table where I was told to relax while this gorgeous girl went to retrieve my bottle. In the moments before my bottle arrived it was pretty clear that the people in the bar were trying to figure out what it was that I was doing in the VIP, I was not a regular at the Palms at this point by any means and as I later learned it is a bar frequented by a pretty steady flow of familiar faces.

I enjoyed my experience so thoroughly that I began going back on a very regular basis. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship between myself and the Palms, as the evenings passed the staff came to know my face. Within the first two weeks I was addressed by name whenever I walked in the door, and the regulars started to ask questions about who and what I was. The questions amused me, as I had tried to live as low profile a life as I possibly could through my first years of college. I was always horrified of the idea of being robbed, now I worry much less about my appearance whether I have on gym shorts and a tshirt or a suit and tie I keep an eye on my surroundings as always but now I suppose I have just relaxed as I have come know two things; One being robbed is not the end of the world, for anyone but the idiot who tries to rob me. The second being the fact that I now feel confident in my ability to find anyone who decides to be so brazen.

Personal security concerns aside, my evenings have been changed for the better by that amazing night. So much so in fact that last night as I was sitting in another establishment having a drink with a friend a song started to play, my friend leans in and tells me that the last verse by 50 cent was about me. I sat back and smiled waiting to hear what he could possibly have to say about me, sure enough the verse was great and as he was finishing it up I was surprised to find a gorgeous woman running over to give me a hug and a kiss. Sure enough it was my first VIP hostess from the Palms looking stunning as always, she had seen me sitting down and decided to come over and say hi.



The song that was playing.