The Lads

I had been meaning to get together with my buddy Skittles for some time now, as he just moved to Chicago from Ireland a few weeks ago. I met Skittles during a summer working at Navy Pier together taking pictures of tourists. I thought, it being a Wednesday, that I would just have a beer or two, catch up on old times, and then leave shortly after the Bulls game. Instead, when I stepped into the bar, I saw around 5 familiar Irish faces from that summer, one of whom was having a bachelor party. That's right: A bunch of drunken Irishmen who I know and love had come out to Chicago for a stag party, and I had unknowingly stepped into it.

I could have stuck to my guns with my self-imposed curfew, but come on, these lads are great fun and I hadn't seen them in years. Here are some highlights in no particular order:

1. There was a little Black girl in the first bar (there would be a few) who we were calling Rooty Huxtable (hope that's not racist), and one lad, Plastico, said, "Huxtable. That's a magnificent surname."

2. When we were reminiscing about that summer a few years back, they were all saying how a picture of a rapist on the loose at the time had his sketch on the door of every bar and club on the north side of Chicago, and the guy looked just like one of the lads, Dunigan. I don't remember this, but it has to be true because even Dunigan, a guy too nice to do anything remotely as heinous as rape, had to admit it to be true.

3. We were trying to think of what bar had a good special on Wednesday nights, as when they were here last, all the Irish kids working on the Pier knew the schedule of the best specials so that each and every night they could find a place to drink extremely cheaply. What's funny is that when you went into one of those places, you would learn that the word had spread to Irish kids all over the city, and you would see it packed full of sun burnt Irishmen, happily drinking away their wages.

4. I don't remember why, but I was asking them what the expression is in Ireland for being horny or having a boner, and as it turns out, it's "on the horn" or a you're like a "bag of horns." Try to work that in a conversation sometime soon, Seven Readers.

5. The lads had plans to go to nudey bar, something I wasn't game for on a Wednesday, and Skittles was saying that the last time he was at one was when he was last in Chicago, when he and Pony (a lad who couldn't make it out for the stag but was missed dearly) went to such a place with a raging cokehead they met that night by the name of Phillip Kuntz. Old Kuntzy took a liking to the boys and bought them their drinks and titty bucks all night, but when he started to have an intense freak out/meltdown in the cab, the lads made a "quick exit."

6. I guess there's something called Chess Boxing where guys alternate rounds of boxing and a few minutes of speed chess for a total of 12 minutes of chess, and you can win by either checkmate or knockout. Yes, something that stupid exists, we talked about it, and you can see it here:


7. While at the titty bar**, I learned that, like Christmas, it's better to give than to receive. I'll explain: Remember when you were a little kid and all you cared about what was present you got rather than what you got other people, but then as you got older, you really wanted to know that people liked what you picked out for them? Well, I'm finding titty bars to be kinda like that because I had so much fun picking out the perfect stripper for the bachelor, Buttons, to spend my money on him, and I ultimately decided upon a beautiful Russian one (or at least she faked a good accent) by the name of Kassandra who was sitting all alone. I asked her what she was doing sitting there all by her lonesome, and she said she was waiting for me. Of course she was! They're such sweet talkers (read bullshitters) in those place. In any case, Buttons was quite pleased with the Russian's work.

8. Kassandra was the best looking and arguably the most "talented***," but the funniest one by far was one by the name of Heidi the Mountain Girl, who dressed not unlike the famous literature hero of the Swiss Alps. After she sat on my lap, I asked her why she went by the mountain girl, and she said because of her mountains, motioning towards her giant fake boobs. Duh! Then she said she wanted to do the splits on my face. I asked in which direction, and after thinking about it for a moment, she said the outwards way. I guess I really didn't have a preference as this was Buttons' night, and as such, I bought him a dance from the Mountain Girl as well.

9. A nudey bar on a Wednesday night is ordinarily a horrible idea, but it was so good to see all these gents. They're such great guys that if they asked really nice, I think I'd do the splits on their faces in any direction they saw fit.

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*Phillip, if you googled yourself and found this blog, I hope you're not offended, and I hope you've cleaned up. God's speed, Kuntzy.
**Never mind what I said in number 5 about limitations on school nights. It was just too much fun to see these guys.
***Another of the lads, Tonto, agreed, so that's two Irishmen giving Kassandra a nod for a Lappy, which is a lap dance award I just made up.