Friday and Saturday nights are very sacred in the life of a single male in his 20’s. They are and forever will be reserved exclusively for hitting the bars with the guys. No negotiations. No dates, no movies, no poker night, etc. Those things were all created in order to get the 20-something guy successfully through the week with enough activities so it doesn’t seem so bleak in comparison to the amazement of the weekend bars.

The plans begin being laid on Tuesday afternoon, after the Saturday hangover is finally out of the system completely. By Thursday, the pre-funk and final destinations are set and off we go again. My personal group varies between 10-15 guys depending on the season. Some get girlfriends and depart for a couple months (always seeming to return eventually). Others are less inclined for this type of fun in the winter. Some move away or get jobs that interfere. The great thing about a group of this size is that by Thursday you know 5-7 guys are going to be available both nights. And the other great thing is that everyone plays a unique, but equally important, part of the group dynamic that leads to optimal fun. You have the planner (my roommate T Miz sends out the Tuesday email or mass text to kick off the weekly conversation and sets the mood on when its bar switching time), the starters (the guys that show up to the pre-funk already a little drunk from their pre-pre-funk and force everyone else to start drinking faster than they want), the buyers (the guys that get those first couple rounds of shots at the bar without blinking an eye at the expense), the ladies men (the guys that generally make the whole group more attractive to a set of co-eds), the aggressors (the guys with the balls to go up to those co-eds without any fear of failure), and the drinkers (the guys that love drinking and hanging out and are less interested in the bar scene girls). Their are numerous subsets within these groups (the shy guy you have to coax to come out but then unleashes when he gets some beers down, the cocky guy who doesn’t actually ever hit on girls, the guy who thinks fighting is a good idea around 1:30am, the guy who totally ruins your game by being way to drunk, etc), but I think you get the drift.

So anyway, we had the usual compliment of guys this past Friday night. The pre-funk was at my house this time - we happen to live pretty close to our favorite group of bars, so I expect this to be a common occurrence through the summer. The starters showed up around 8:30. They had been at their favorite bar for dinner and drinks since 6pm and already had set up 2 girls to meet them at our next location. (Note: the girls had hit on my friends, so of course our expectations were low - turned out to be average). They were drunk of course, and one of them was doing his famous “barking out” routine. Definitely the best dog impression I have ever heard - but can be tough when he “barks you out” at the bar when you are trying to play the staring game with some attractive prospect at the next table.

So we hit the bars. Pretty standard night early on. Have a couple drinks at establishment number one, move on to establishment number two, have a couple more drinks. At this point T Miz is starting to take people’s temperature about his hope for our final destination. It is officially a dance club and I think that he would go there every night if it was socially acceptable. And we probably do end up there once on any given weekend. The drinkers like the irish bar type place as opposed to the dance club and don’t want to go (we go through this same routine every weekend, sometimes they cave, sometimes they don’t), but the rest of the group is generally interested unless they have struck up a conversation with a specific lady. Anyway, so we go. The buyers do their duty and get everyone good and drunk and the aggressors head for the dance floor to survey the scene. The rest of us hang out by the bar.

It is getting late and I am definitely getting drunk. T Miz is still around, but many of the guys have started to bail (the starters or course started way too early and couldn’t last, the drinkers sneak out without saying anything, and I think one of the others found a girl he was interested in a left). Inevitably it happens every time that those of us who don’t mind dancing end up doing that and those of us that don’t like dancing get overwhelmed by the noise and crowd and either go to a different bar or go home. Anyway, so it’s just me and T Miz at this point. Probably 12:30am. T Miz is off doing his favorite activity (dancing) and I am hanging around the bar. Drunk. Some guy try’s to cut in front of me in line and bumps me along the way (and by line I mean awful jumble of people trying to get the attention of a bartender). In my drunken state I say something witty and hilarious like “i’m f-ing next”. He takes offense and in his drunken state decides to get in my face about this. I have been known to talk some shit but not back it up with actual fighting (I mean, I could get hurt). So I do my usual and give him the shit-talking business. And I mean, I am giving the gold standard Gary Payton type shit-talking. Well the bouncers don’t like it and it takes a couple of them to drag me outside. I am flailing everywhere, doing my best to slow their drag, but these guys are quite large and I don’t seem to be having any affect on them. Once outside, I decide its a good idea to give the bouncer the Gary Payton. I figure I am already kicked out and I have so much good material stirred up that I might as well use it. That goes on for a few minutes until the girls T Miz is talking to inform him that I have been “escorted” out. He joins me and we move on. We don’t get far though and head into the bar next door.

Maybe five minutes pass. We are settling in at the new bar and in walks one of the bouncers from the dance club. I am not far from the entrance and the bouncer and I lock eyes immediately. Again, being drunk, I quickly take offense to him being “back in my space” and begin speaking to T Miz (unnecessarily loud) - “there’s the motherf-er who kicked me out of the last place”. Well, that doesn’t sit well and he tells the bouncer at the new bar that I should be kicked out of here too. Since they are in the bouncer club together, he agrees and I am now kicked out of two different bars by the same bouncer. That was a new one for me. And that was my bar hopping adventure this past weekend. Only four more days until Friday!