Sober Weekend #3: Crappy Pizza Tastes Way Better When You’re Not Sober

Posted on March 26, 2012 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

On Friday after work I met up with two of my buddies for a rock climbing session at MetroRock. After a solid three hours of crushing it we opted for food and beer at RedBones afterward. RedBones is a place where mass quantities of excellent meat (pulled pork sandwiches hmmmm) meets freely flowing beer taps (30oz mugs?!), basically it’s heaven. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to be drinking any beer but the thing that surprised me the most was that I was actually jonesing for a veggie burger. The me from 6-months-ago NEVER would have ordered a veggie burger (let’s put it in a time frame: EVER), let alone a veggie burger at a BBQ joint like RedBones, it’s borderline sacrilegious. Nonetheless that’s what I ordered, it also helped that one member of our trio was a vegetarian. I figured I’d also try out one of their non-alcoholic beers because I’ve never actually had one. As long as I was on this sober month I might as well give it a try.

Turns out O'Douls is pretty nasty, it's like a crappy rendition of PBR, something I'm sure not even hipsters would tolerate. Thanks to Ryan for rubbing it in in the background :)

The next day Sarah got back from a trip to New Orleans and she had bought me a flask. I’ve wanted one for a while so it was an excellent gift, although an excellent gift that will have to wait until April 1st at 12:01am.

Then Saturday night my friends were having a Ke$ha-themed party for our friend’s bday. It mostly involved a lot of glitter, which I’m still trying to get out of my hair. The plan was for everyone to party at our friend’s apartment and then to hit up Phoenix Landing, a bar meant for sweaty dancing and 80s/90s/top 40 songs. I was kind of excited to go experience the glory that is Phoenix Landing as a sober person because I’m sure very few people have witnessed it sober. When we got to the bar the line was outrageously long so we made peace with the fact it’d take an hour to get inside so we decided to go back to my friends apartment and resume the party with beer pong and more Ke$ha.

Sober beer pong, not sure I've ever done that before this weekend...

Maybe it was just me being sober, but drinking out of the cups seemed pretty gross after watching a half dozen dozen people slobber all over them. I’ve never really cared much to think about it but I’m sure it’s a great way to get mono. I prefer having my own side beer and filling the cups with water anyway. For this game I stuck to my tasty, yet sans alcohol, fruit drink.

We ended up losing the game, I'm sure my skills were off because I was sober, all my training throughout college was under the influence so I'm not surprised we got smoked by our opponents.

On the way back to the T going home, we stopped by a great late-night pizza place because we had the munchies. It was then that I learned that drunk food definitely tastes better when you’re drunk.

Late night pizza tastes WAY better when you're not sober. Definitely gross, definitely ate it anyway, #SorryImNotSorry

I rounded out the weekend with some live blues at the Beehive in the South End. The event is free but generally involves food and beer as an expectation for attending the event. We stood around watching the show for about an hour before finally getting a table but it was totally worth it because we were front row, pretty excellent.

Front row for blues at the Beehive.

The waiter came by and asked us what we would like for beer or cocktails and we all ordered waters. I definitely felt weird about not ordering a drink and we definitely got a hesitant weird look from the waiter in return. A bourbon on the rocks seemed much more appropriate for blues music but water would have to suffice for tonight. It was interesting to be at the Beehive and not be drinking. It’s such a cultural norm to drink during entertainment and it felt a bit bizarre to simply ask for water. I felt fine about it because I also ordered their poutine which was fantastic. It was no Dysarts poutine but it was good nonetheless.

Day 25 – Paid T-Fare & Conversation Fail

Posted on January 31, 2012 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

As always it was getting late and I hadn’t done a random act of kindness yet. I was going out to the Tufts area to do a winter safety seminar after work and as I got on the T, I decided I’d pay for the fare of the person behind me. Previously in this month I’ve paid for people’s T-fares but I’ve never done it getting onto the same train with that person. So this time I was going to try and strike up a conversation with the person. Epic fail!

The guy behind me who I had arbitrarily decided would receive my random act of kindness for the day, turned out to be an almost non-functional drunk middle aged man. He had also packed a lip of chewing tobacco and was spitting into a Dunkin Donuts cup. I knew that he wasn’t homeless because he took out a wallet with credit cards in it and had been fiddling around trying to find his Charlie Card. I then told him I’d swipe him in as a random act of kindness and he grunted some type of approval, spit in his cup, and hustled away from me.

So I didn’t get the warm and fuzzy feeling that I was looking for: doing something nice and then having a great conversation about it with a perfect stranger. Instead I just helped a drunk dude get into the T-station. I suppose that’s a semi-valiant cause considering he was so drunk he couldn’t even get his card out of his wallet (someone should tell him he can just hold his wallet up to the machine and beep it). I doubt he’ll remember it and I doubt that it made a big difference in his life, but it’s the thought that counts.

Day 18 – Public Transit Directions to a Group of Drunk Celtics Fans

Posted on January 25, 2012 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

It was a particularly dark evening today after work so naturally I was half-asleep on the train heading back into Boston. Reason #127 why taking the train is better than driving: you can sleep on the train but you can’t sleep while driving (or at least I’ve heard its generally frowned upon). Sleeping on the train is the best, except for the days when a group of 20-30 people get on the train and start getting rowdy. Today was one of those days. I overheard that they were on their way to the Celtics game at the Garden. So being super jealous of their afterwork shenanigans I tried to go back to sleep. Then I overheard them discussing how they planned to get to the Garden on public transit. They really had no idea where they were going so I perked up seeing an opportunity for a random act of kindness and show them how to get to the game.

There was a clear leader to their group so I asked her if she knew where she was going. The route she told me about would have indeed got them to the game but it likely would have taken an extra 20-30 minutes. They clearly didn’t Google Map the directions before hand, amateur mistake :). So I told them to get off at my stop and that I’d point them in the right direction. I had to wait for a bunch of rowdy (definitely not sober) 20-somethings to get off the train which was a bit irritating to their leader but I thought it was pretty entertaining. Then they all followed me out of the station and I put them in the right direction. The leader thanked me for taking the time to show them where to go and the group all (belligerently) yelled thanks as we parted ways.

I see this all the time on the T: drunk Bruins/Celtics/Red Sox fans who come into the city for a game and then wander around having no idea how to get where they’re going. It still blows my mind that out of a group of 20+ people, not one of them pulled out their smartphone to see how they should get to the Garden. As much as I wanted to nap on the train and ignore their very existence, I’m glad that today I had the patience to send them to the Garden with good directions.