Priming the Pump: A Necessity of City Life

Back in Michigan, pre-drinking was never really an act I never really participated in. I usually had to drive to the bar and drinking a case of beer is never really a good idea before getting behind the wheel. Getting drunk at the bar was never really an issue. We usually went to the same place all the time where they would hook us up with drinks and let us stay after hours to sober up and avoid the police during their busiest time of night. But things have certainly changed now that I have moved to Chicago. Now I don't drive anywhere. Now pre-drinking has turned into an art form. It is the simplest way to not spend every hard-earned dollar in your pocket on booze.

The last two weekends have been great examples of this. Two weeks ago on Saturday, everyone came to my apartment before we were leaving for the bar. Everyone was just sitting around, drinking beer and talking about bullshit. When all of a sudden, someone started a yawn chain. Lets just say that I wasn't very happy with this and I knew I had to do something about it. We need to have some fun and we need to do it right now. As you probably can tell, I am a big movie guy. And the one scene that popped into my head when I realized what I needed to do was from Beerfest, when they walk into the Frat party "We're the party brigade".

Suddenly their were 8 shot glasses laid out on my bar and I was reaching into the freezer for the ice cold half gallon of Canadian Club (CC) that I had bought in case of just such an emergency. I quickly rallied the troops around the bar and started getting everyone to do shots. After about 5 shots each within an hour there was no more yawning. Everyone was quite awake and ready to party. We topped everyone off with three rounds of "Thunder Chug" and headed to the bar completely shitfaced. I spent $0 at the bar that night.

This last weekend was very similar. No one yawned because they feared the catastrophic affects of their actions. This time they just bellied up and decided not to fight it. This time I decided to start the night off with some Curty Bombs. This consists of a shot of Jack Daniels dropped in a glass of Rockstar. After three round we were out of Rockstar but had plenty of Jack, or at least we thought. When the Jack ran out we turned to SoCo. Shot after shot and beer after beer, we were once again drunk. How much did I spend at the bar this time? $0

The damage of the two weekends: One half gallon of Canadian Club, 1 1/2 fifths of Jack, a fifth of SoCo and about 6 cases of beer. Not bad for 8 people.