The Drunken Blog

I recently took a mini vacation down to the Florida Keys to visit my sister. I went with my dad; it was my and my sister’s birthday gift to him. I knew this could be trouble, especially since my dad doesn’t drink, but he might also want to spend time with us, while my sister and I would want to go out and get hammered.

My sister is a teacher down in the Keys and she has some teacher friends, most of whom seem to be from Ohio for some unknown reason (it would later be explained to me that Ohio has a really good teacher training program). However, these friends had the thought that they were going to try and get me so drunk that I would throw up.

I liked this challenge for several reasons, the first of which was the fact that it meant they would have to buy me drinks if they were going to get me drunk, and free drinks are always a good thing. Secondly, I am pretty confident in my ability to drink. I have a friend in the army and when we drink we stay right on par with each other. He’s told me that when he drinks with his army buddies, he completely drinks them under the table. This bolstered my confidence somewhat.

But I don’t like to flaunt the fact that I can handle my alcohol, because as soon as you start bragging you have people that start gunning for you, trying their damnedest to get you to vomit. Well, I’m human and if you give me enough alcohol I’m going to throw up, the question is, will it be before or after you throw up?

I have also started to think of myself somewhat as a city boy (as opposed to a country bumpkin), and I thought this would be place to see if those stories I hear about people in the Midwest doing nothing but drinking is true. (Look, I know that neither Ohio nor Southern Florida is the Midwest, but they aren’t the East Coast, and therefore in my mind, they might as well be the Midwest.) Now, my sister and her friends certainly aren’t country bumpkins, in fact, if you can believe it, they are just like anybody you would see in DC, this was slightly disappointing for my stereotype, and made me wonder if this would even be a fair drinking competition.

We start off by going to this bar called “The Hurricane”, which is actually a pretty nice, chill bar. It’s pretty weird, though, because there are little kids running around. When I say little kids, I really mean kids ranging anywhere from 5 to 18. This is apparently a family hang out, in addition to a bar. This is not something that I am used to in DC, where you can’t get in to most places if you are under 21. We drink pretty casually here. My dad, who does not drink, has found entertainment in the parents of my sister’s friend Amanda, who are visiting. It is an interesting dynamic there because Amanda’s dad drinks, a lot, and my dad doesn’t drink at all.

Regardless, my dad is occupied, which means that I am free to drink whatever I want. My sister’s friends keep telling me that they are going to get me so wasted when we go to the next bar, the dive bar, “The Monkey.” One of them whispers in my ear that they are going to get my sister so wasted that she will pass out so that she won’t be able to protect me from them.

I’m starting to like the sound of this challenge.

We continue drinking at The Hurricane. There is a deck and on the deck there is a beer pong table. I don’t feel in necessary at this time to humiliate everybody there with my awesome skills, so I don’t play.

Aside from drinking, the only thing of interest that happened at the Hurricane was when my dad was hit on by a 300 pound woman and didn’t even realize it. She used one of the oldest lines you possibly could when you see a parent out and about with their child – you say their child is actually their sibling. Mom’s are always flattered, daughters always disgusted. I didn’t realize that this was a line that women used on men as well. Like I said, my dad did not realize he was being hit on and started talking to this lady, out of pity, I would imagine.

Eventually my dad, whose bedtime is normally around 9pm, got tired and we drove him home. We then decided it was time to go to The Monkey. This was around 1am. I was super excited because this meant that I was about to get wasted, it had been a while since I got wasted.

We took separate cars and my sister and I got there first. I withheld buying a drink because I wanted to see what the boys would get for me. They eventually made it into the bar and went and got drinks, but no drinks for me. I was a little upset, not at not being bought a drink, but the fact that this meant I would probably have to get wasted on my own accord. I went to the bar and got a round of drinks.

My sister was not pleased with the situation and informed the boys of such. Moments later I had my first shot. It was Jager and something. That would be a running theme for the night, Jager and stuff. I think that’s the only type of alcohol they have in Ohio. And what’s with the shooters? I mean, shooters are good fun, but if I am trying to wreck somebody, I buy them shots, and nasty shots at that. Ever had a four horseman?

After about 3 Jager and stuff shots I inform my drinking buddies that they do, in fact, make a liquor other than Jager, and they most likely sell that other liquor in this particular bar. They seemed to take offense, but did not change their ways. I think it should be noted that they were going shot for shot with me, so when I tell you later that they both threw up, you won’t be that disappointed in them.

I should also mention that at this dive bar they had a live band. Just a three member band, there was Freddy, the lead singer and lead guitar, then a bassist and a drummer. They play there regularly. Tonight, however, they would have a special vocalist.

So this guy in a yellow shirt with the sleeves cut off gets up on stage and starts singing. I assume he is a member of the band, but my sister assures me that this is not the case. This is, in fact, Nick Carter. I just sort of tilt my head at her, because I still don’t know who he is. She then explains to me that he is the guy from The Backstreet Boys. She then explains to me that the entire family is from this part of the Keys. I then remember that he has a little brother named Aaron.

I quickly make up three cheers, only two of which I say outloud. I guess, actually, that cheer is probably not the right word. Heckle would probably be a more fitting word. So I thought of three heckles to say to this Nick Carter, who was wasted, by the way. Actually, let me just go off on a tangent real quick here – how washed up do you have to be to go to your hometown to sing cover songs at some Podunk bar at two in the morning?

Anyway, my heckles were as such: “Yea, Aaron Carter!”, “Where’s Aaron Carter?”, and the third, which I only said privately at my table, “Yea, Nick Lachey!” You see, I did a very clever thing here, I pretended that Nick was actually his little brother, or that other Nick from NSync 98 Degrees, who I only know because he was married to Jessica Simpson.

I went back and forth between these heckles for quite some time. I’m not sure if Nick Carter has a sister or not, but there was this chick there that said that she was his sister. You could tell that she was a wasted because when we were walking into The Monkey, she was standing outside in a bathing suit top posing for pictures that random guys were taking from a van. I thought she would have flashed the cameras, but then she saw us walking up and decided against it.

I don’t know how I started talking to this girl, or how it came up that she and Nick were related, but I decided to call her on it. I told her that if she was really Nick’s sister, she should go up on stage and sing with him. And I’ll be damned if she wasn’t drunk enough to do it. I guess she had some pride and couldn’t admit to a complete stranger that she was not actually Nick Carter’s sister. I have no clue why she would even care – I wouldn’t have touched her with a ten foot pole, if only because my sister had demonized her as soon as she saw her posing for the van. She did get on stage, but did not actually sing, and quickly got off the stage again. I should have told her if she was Nick Carter’s sister, she should go up and make out with him. She probably would have tried it at least.

Eventually, after about an hour of heckling, while the band was taking a break, the lead singer came over to me and menacingly said, “If you want to be funny, you go be funny outside.” I quieted down, but continued to drink.

After having helped to break up two fights, and nearly getting kicked out for heckling Nick Carter, you know it’s about time to go. We try to gather everybody up, we find one of the boys who is now mumbling every thing that he says to the point where he is basically unintelligible. Seeing him like that makes me feel much more sober, especially since he is a lot bigger than me.

He will not remember the ride home, nor vomiting in the bathroom of The Monkey. The other boy that was trying to get me wasted was in no better shape. I think he tried to blame his throwing up on the fried chicken that he made us pick up when we drove him home.

In their defense, though, they did drink a lot, and I got pretty wasted. When we went back to my sister’s place, there was a mattress on the ground set up for me, but for some reason I decided that this was not suitable, so instead I decided to go sleep on the loveseat, which is way too tiny for me to fit on. Luckily there were two identical loveseats so I tried to move them together in such a way that I would fit. After giving one slight push I gave up and passed out. It’s funny - I can remember getting up and moving, but for the life of me I can’t remember why.

Two nights later I went back to The Monkey. Freddy, the lead singer, recognized me. He even dedicated two songs to “Aaron Carter” while pointing to me. The first song that he played was “I want it that way.” He definitely played out the entire song, I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time. The next song he played was Purple Rain, which they had played the previous night and which Nick Carter sang.

It was good that he played those songs and was able to entertain me, because he didn’t know any of the other 5 songs that I requested (Foreigner – Double Vision, The Doors, Riders on the Storm, etc.). When we finally decided to leave, Freddy made sure that everybody in the bar knew that “Aaron Carter” was leaving.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more entertained by a cover band in my life.

UPDATE: It has just come to my attention that the girl that said she was Nick Carter’s sister may in fact be Nick Carter’s sister. Here is the girl in question:

And here is a picture of Bobbie Jean Carter from IMDB.com:

Other posts by Justin

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 8:03 am and is filed under good times, friends, family, video, alcohol . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.