NYC-Mira

New York City has a unique way of exacting a toll from visitors whether they want to pay or not. You can kid yourself and say "I'm going to go for the weekend but will take it easy, nothing crazy" but NYC doesn't play by those rules. It's going to get its pound of flesh one way or another. Last weekend was no different, I went up to hang out with some friends and as per usual all hell broke loose.

Side Note:
Last week I considered the ways in which I could get up to NYC. Train round trip was $230, a flight was $248, and I figured between gas and parking it would cost me about $150 to drive up. However, I wasn't too excited about driving because it's a pretty shitty ride, so I scratched that. Then my sister suggested the Bolt Bus, which was $46 round trip. I was skeptical but for that price how can you not give it a shot? So, Friday afternoon I skipped out of work early and caught a 12:30 bus which got me into the city right at 5:30, which wasn't too shabby.

Friday night I stayed with one of my sisters who lives in the city (with her four children). We had dinner, watched the Yankees get bitch slapped by the Rangers, then hit the hay early.

Saturday afternoon I met C-roc, my brother, some of his friends, and a couple of my college pals in the city to watch football and drink our body weight in over priced beer. We bounced around the city, moving from dive bar to dive bar until my brother and his crew had to head home. C-roc was supposed to bail with them but made a (poor) last minute decision to stick around. I had loose plans to crash at my buddy Junior's house for the night, but Uncle Charlie had also left me a key to his apartment.

C-roc and I drank our way down the west side of the city. By 8pm I was mildly out of control from a near lethal combination of Miller Lite and Jim Beam. As we left our third bar I informed C-roc that we needed to eat something or very bad things would happen. He agreed so I said "this looks like a nice place". I don't know the name of the restaurant, but it was a very fancy white table cloth affair. C-roc and I barged through the door and the maitre d' was obviously skeptical. He made a half-hearted attempt at seating us, pratically unable to hide his contempt, but I breezed past him and made my way to the kitchen. I walked through the double swinging doors to the kitchen and went over to the line where I informed the chef "I'm going to whip up a couple of sandwiches for my buddy and I, this will only take a minute." While this was going on C-roc was in the dining room trying in vain to convince the manager not to call the police. Luckily for me two dishwashers and one rather large sous chef physically ejected me from the premises before the police could arrive. Thank god fat donut-eating cops are slow.

We were just getting our stride. With the last food run having gone horribly wrong we decided it would be a good idea to get another drink. We walked about two blocks then rounded a corner, thinking walking two full blocks would throw the cops off our trail. C-roc and I bellied up to the bar which, was pretty crowded considering it was only about 9pm. We tried in vain to get the (very sexy blond) bartender's attention for about five minutes. Growing impatient, I leaned way over the bar and held out my arm, waiving it wildly. She saw me, rolled her eyes, held up one finger and said "I'll be there in a minute". Nope, that wasn't good enough for me, so I started whipping coasters at her ass as hard as I could while yelling "Nurse! Oh, nurse! I think this patient is coding down here!" pointing to C-roc, "Quick, drinks are needed! Hurry, we're losing him!!!" She was quasi-amused by our antics and didn't throw us out of the bar, and even gave us two beers.

While C-roc and I made small talk with two chubby girls I spotted a cute blond walking in with another girl. I was looking at her trying to figure out how I knew her when it hit me, it was Mira, the girl I met in Lake Placid this past New Year's. I walked up behind her and said "Hey, so what happened, you didn't want to get drinks with me?". She turned around, looked at me with her mouth open for a long time, then said, "It's you!".

You may recall that I don't like to lose. You may also recall that I mentioned to Mira that I was in the city fairly often and suggested we get together for a drink sometime, to which I received no reply, and I took very personally. So naturally I used our fortuitous meeting as an opportunity to scold her for not returning my email. Mira was kind of meekish and maybe even felt a little bad, but who really knows what her situation is. She's married for all I know. Whatever the case, after I finished giving her a hard time C-roc and I left and went to another bar. If she was on the fence about hanging out with me before, I think she's certain now that she made the right decision.

I am ashamed to admit that shortly after leaving the next bar the lights went out in NN-Land. C-roc said that one minute I was chatting up a girl and the next my eyes had rolled into the back of my head and the only thing I could say was "I don't know, man. I just don't know". I couldn't remember Uncle Charlie's or my sister's address so C-roc called my younger sister and got my NYC sister's address. He then escorted me there in a cab, dumped me off with the doorman, and made his way back home.

It was not the high-point of my life. Do I care, not really.

This weekend is obviously Halloween, the best night of the year. I'm having a big party at my house then moving the party to the bars late night.