Herdin' Cats

So, last night was aight. I managed to have a good time without drinking...at a bar; something I wouldn't have thought possible before I began this sobering spiritual odyssey. My patience was tried on a few occasions, for sure, but I'm happy to report that I was able to look past the legion of annoying drunkards and layer of cigarette smoke and have a good time with my friends.

Started the day at Carpool, which I figured would be a good bar to ease me into my sober barhopping adventure, since playing pool and shooting at cyber-deer with a fake plastic shotgun would help fill the void left by barley and hops. I met up with Jimmy, John, Natasha and her friend whose name eludes me at the moment...I know it starts with an L (apparently I'm forgettful when sober too) to celebrate Jimmy's birthday. Since we decided to meet up at 3 pm because Jimmy had to be up early in the morning, the bar was pretty empty, and the lack of a drunken horde bumping into me was much appreciated.

The afternoon went pretty well, since I pretty much played pool and "Big Buck Hunter" constantly, but the first thing I noticed was that sober bar time moves about twice as slowly as drunken bar time. I'd get through a few games of pool, talk to the group, and when I checked my watch only 20 minutes had gone by since the last time I checked. Weird.

Another thing that really weirded me out happened after about 2 hours at Carpool. Michelle, Becky and Stan showed up, and Stan and I started a game of pool. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a fairly creepy looking old man standing about 5 feet away from our table...staring at us. I tried to ignore him and carry on with the game, but every 5 minutes or so I'd look up and he'd still be there. He must have stood in the same spot, for a solid 30 minutes, just staring at our pool table. I'm not really sure why he was staring, since we aren't terribly good or bad at pool, but it was really bizarre.

I'm sure I would have been just as weirded out by the wacky, elderly pool afficianad had I been intoxicated. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that Drunk Panek may have asked him if he wanted to play a game and asked him some probing questions to determine the source of his weirdness. Chalk one up for Sober Panek, since by the look of him, he'd have probably said some really weird shit.

Oh, and for the record, being sober didn't really affect my pool game at all. In fact, I was consistently better than when I played drunk- maybe a little worse than the height of my "drunk zone", but overall much better sober. Guess it's back to the drawing board on that one.

So we left the gang at Carpool and headed to dinner at 7, and met the rest of our dinner party at Caribbean Breeze, the cheezy looking-yet surprisingly good restaurant/cheezy night club. Nobody was drunk at this point, but the drinks were definitely flowing. I was tempted to snag Michelle's mojito, take it to the head, and suck the remaining goodness out of the sugarcane stick...but resisted once my delicious pomegranate iced tea showed up.

I'm not sure what the good Lord was trying to tell me at dinner, but for some reason I was the only one who had a bad experience. My food came out cold, didn't taste a hell of a lot better once it came out of the microwave, I got charged for an alcoholic beverage which I didn't consume, and my stomach started doing backflips shortly after we left. Everyone with delicious margaritas, mojitos, cervezas, and capirinhas got delicious entrees, and their checks were added correctly. I'm going to assume that my particularly outstanding pomegranate iced tea was meant to show me that my trials, albeit difficult at times will ultimately have positive results.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

So, we hopped in the car and headed over to Whitlow's to see "Back To Zero", the band that played at Stan and Becky's wedding that was really awesome. Too bad Stan's German relatives couldn't join them for an impromptu accordion session like they did at the wedding! EINS, ZWEI, STUFFE!!!!!

I paid my and Michelle's cover and we walked in, meeting up with everyone and getting a spot at the bar, which was pretty crowded at this point. One of the aspects of the bar scene that I find especially annoying is constantly being bumped by people who are unaware of their surroundings, so it came to no surprise that within 5 minutes of walking in some big galoot bumped into me, lurching forward to bump into Michelle- never breaking stride when telling his buddies some story that was evidentally the most hilarious story ever told. From one galloot to another, I must say that was poor galloot ettiquite.

Much like the pomegranate iced tea saved dinner, a booth opened up and saved my Whitlow's experience. Despite the fact that the bouncers told us that the booths were reserved for the "dinner crowd" for another 45 minutes, I wasn't going to be denied. I sat at that booth for the rest of the night, while people came and went, and watched the night unfold before my eyes. I could see the drinks working their magic with my "enhanced" powers of sober perception, all the while taking notes on my cellphone notepad (probably looked like a tool, but almost everyone else was drunk, so they probably didn't even notice!)

Without further ado, my notes-

-Jimmy slapped my ass about 10 times at Carpool, yelling "GOOD GAME!"
-I checked my watch about twice as many times than I would sober
-I shot at the wrong ball in a pool game, something I do a lot drunk. Apparently I can be fairly absent minded without the help of alcohol.
-A young lady tried to stand up, fell back down, her shirt fell down (luckily for her she was wearing a bra), and she was then carried out of the bar by a chivalrous (hopefully) young gentleman
-Was educated about a sexual position known as the "Eiffel Tower"
-Another young lady walked up to a guy and yelled "That's not your beer!", switched beers with him, and walked away. From the look of it, the dude had never seen her before in his life. I wonder if she thought he roofie'd her drink?
-I got charged 3.00 for a coke! Way to promote designated driving, Whitlow's!
-A guy outside karate kicked a tree about 10 times! That tree must have wronged him in some terrible way. I can't really talk, seeing that I've taken my drunken anger out on inanimate objects before; they're easy targets.
-Being a big galloot, I stumbled into a group of people...totally sober. I apologized and went on my way.
-I made a point to get my dance on to see if it was still awesome without beer. It was.

11:51- Everybody's drunk! Everybody's talking really loudly!!!
11:53- Stanley purchases first round of Jager shots
12:02- Stan, Becky and "the other Michelle" are in a big group hug. The group hug is moving from the bar to the table!
12:10- Stan tries to give "the other Michelle's" boyfriend 2 dollars to buy 4 shots of Jager
12:11- Rejected, Stan went to the bar and harrassed the gentleman sitting next to him with a plastic M&M., which the guy eventually bitchslapped across the bar. I stood between them so Stan could buy the 4 shots on his credit card
12:12- Everyone else had gone home, so Stan had to do 2 of the 4 shots. I decided it was time to go
12:30- Finally managed to corral everyone and get them to the car. Wasn't easy!

All and all, I had a really good time, despite having to do a little "cat herding" at the end of the night (our vases nearly met their untimely end!). I noticed a lot of strange and hilarious things that I wouldn't normally notice under the influence, and was pleased to find out that I could actually have a good, sober time at a bar. Drunk people are a hilarious, emotional, and occasionally surly bunch, and I look forward to rejoining their ranks...just on a slightly less regular basis. At least now I know that being on the other side sometimes isn't so bad.

I'll have to find out how the rest of Jimmy's night (and this morning) went, snce his car was still at Carpool when we left for Whitlow's. Hopefully someone was there to take notes!