How come every time I put on a suit I think Limo Driver?

The Season is up on me, dog.

The Holiday season is here and I have yet to buy a gift for anyone. Bah, humbug. I read Dickens', A Christmas Carol last week, got me in the spirit and in a bout of festiveness; bought a tree; set-up decorations around the house; and prepared to brew a holiday porter to be ready by Christmas Eve. Then it all came to a screeching halt right at the moment it came to brewing the porter and decorating the tree. So, in all my lazy holiday spirit I now need to get my ass in gear and buy people gifts. I thought about just going to Staples on Christmas Eve and buying everyone pens. Kind of similar to what my friend Joe did, purchasing a set of 13 hunting knives from HSN in August with the intention of giving them out as Christmas presents. Planning anything that far ahead is way out of my scope of life strategy, of which I have never really had. Still the idea is similar, buy everyone the same gift, at same price, every ones happy, right? Wrong, my girlfriend would kill me if I even attempted to do something like this.

To further compound my lazy spirit I decided to drink it up at a friends Holiday party. The deal was $45 all you can drink and eat for three hours, from 8:00 to 11:00, at a bar in the Upper Eastside. This sounded like a great idea, not that bad of a deal, a good way to see some friends. That is if you don't show up two hours late! For reasons I will refuse to disclose, my girlfriend and I arrived at the party at around 9:45, leaving us one hour worth of the drink special. That's not that bad, we were late, so what, we had all night to hang out. Not the case. Upon entering the doorway to the bar I am approached by a balding, bespectacled guy with a thick Irish brogue. Baldy McFoureyes informs me that I owe the $45 cover. I inform him I would like to just purchase drinks from the bar, considering there is only an hour left in the deal, stating that there really is no way I could drink $45 worth of liquor in an hour (well I could, but I was sure my girlfriend couldn't). After much postulating, grimacing, and pleadings I paid the $45, his final excuse, "We closed ta bar doown fer ta paarty, wer loosing ouut mate." Not that I really gave a shit that they were losing money, but that comment made it seem as though it was an obligation to pay the full cover for an hours worth of drinking, just because I showed up late did not excuse me from it, I am always casting personal penances upon myself and for being late to the party, the full cover sufficed as a just sentence. So be it, I paid $90 for my girlfriend and I to get in.

OK, so I lied, it was not just. I was fuming, I was just suckered out of $90. I spot my friends and walk over to them. I tell them that I paid the full cover and I was pissed. They all laughed, and one of them goes, "You know why this happened? 'Cause you're Vinny!!" Great. That's what I need to hear, obviously implying that I am a schmuck. Further adding to my heightened aggravation and ever rising blood pressure was the fact that I was wasting valuable drinking time saying hello to people and justifying, unsuccessfully, how asinine I am.

I had yet to even get a drink, when another one of my friends walks in about 10 minutes behind me:

"Did you pay the cover?"

"Fuck no. What, do you think I'm going to pay $45 to drink for less than an hour?"

"I did."

"HAHAHA, That's funny."

"I'm getting my money back."

So I set off to find this little Irish hobbit who suckered me out of $90. I confront him in the middle of the bar:

"Hey buddy, you just let my friend in here, who walked in five minutes behind me, without charging him the cover."

"Which one? I jus' let twoo mates in whoo sais tey weren't goin' ta trink."

"Really? They weren't going to drink? I find that incredibly hard to believe."

"Which one?"

"Do you think I and my girlfriend are going to get our moneys worth in an hour? There is no food left, and there are plenty of people here that are not for the party."

"We're takin' the hit, mate. Whois yer mate?"

"That guy, over there, thats my fucking mate, and you just let him in for free not five minutes after me!"

"Ok, I'll go coollect ta coover fr'm 'em."

"Woh, Woh, you think I'm making a stink wait until you ask him for the money."

"Here, mate, I tell yer wot I'll doo, I'll gives yer tirty doollors, tha ways yous and yer lady on'y pays six'y."

He hands me $30 in five dollar bills and runs away. I must have stood there for a good two minutes, dumbfounded, I wanted it all back, so I stood there hoping to confront him again, somehow. Eventually, I resigned to it, found a spot at the bar, ordered two Dewar's on the rocks, guzzled the first one, drank the second at half speed, then ordered two pints of Smithwick's ale, gave the bartender two of the fives that constituted my reparations and told him to come to me as often as possible. I believe within about 20 minutes I had drank four beers and five scotches, standing guard over my spot at the crowded bar as if it were the last bastion of my sanity. Binge drinking as a way of justification, not for enjoyment.

All said and done I was heavily drunk within a half hours time and by the time the deal had ended I was completely smashed and ended up taking a 1:20am train out of the city to Long Island. My night in Manhattan literally lasted about three and a half hours and give or take $150, with much of that being spent on drinks after the special had ended.

Just typical shit that happens to me.