Potterbaum-a-thon

The week couldn't go by fast enough for me. It was hectic, I was working on something out of the office so I felt as if I wasn't getting anything done, and my sleep schedule was way off. Of course, I knew that the sleep issue wouldn't improve with the upcoming activities of the weekend.

My friend Dave is a law student in Chicago and, although I talk to him daily, I haven't seen him in a couple of years. I'm not really sure what the reasoning is behind that other than we both have busy schedules and Dave travels to fabulous far off lands often so it seems we're never in the Windy City at the same time.

It was a reunion of sorts this weekend. Chris ("meet ya at the Square guy") and Dave were roommates in college, along with another guy named Jeff. They all decided to get together this weekend. I joined them for their evening of pub-hopping. We met at Sammy's, a sports bar downtown for dinner. It was sooo exciting to see Dave and Jeff again. We did a lot of catching up. I haven't talked to Jeff since we graduated, but he was exactly the same as I remembered him. He reminds me of Milton from "Office Space." The very first time that I met him, he was all decked out in knee and elbow pads and rollerblading around the living room of the guys' apartment. That's the image that still comes to mind everytime I think of him.

Dave doesn't get to Springfield often so he couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a "Horseshoe", a food that one could only find in this city. It's an artery-clogging combination of toast topped with meat of one's choice, french fries, and then drenched in cheese sauce. Dave talked me into forgetting that I was on a diet and go for one too. I decided on the buffalo chicken, but it was too hot...and it didn't mix well with my Smirnoff. Dave discussed his disappointment over not being able to get U2 tickets, I shared my Ticketmaster tricks to guarantee you always get tickets, and Jeff talked about his new "friend", a girl in Russia who won't tell Jeff what her occupation is.

Fast forward to stop #2, the Brewhaus. It's always a favorite, boasting over 100 imports. Jeff (the "lucky bastard") and Dave threw back liters of Weissbier while Chris settled for Bailey's and coffee. I went with a Brewhaus favorite, the Pink Squirrel, followed by a Rum & Coke. While we were sitting there, a man with lots of facial piercings, so many in fact that I'm not exactly sure how any liquid would stay in his head without gushing out the numerous holes, came up to me and introduced himself. He showed us a picture of his kid and his wife's dog. It was a strange situation, but became even stranger when he grabbed a straw and shared my drink with me. I ran into not 1, but 2 ghosts from the past, that's always fun. My friend Jen showed up later and we moved to location #3.

We went to the Alamo to meet Coco, a friend from the Stadium, our usual hangout. When we reached the Alamo, it was evident that Coco had started consuming the spirits early that evening. Chris decided that he was finished drinking, but Jenny, Dave, Jeff and I took Coco up on his offer to do a shot. Jenny, Dave, Jeff and Coco went for a Misdemeanor while I went for something a little less crazy, an O-Bomb, Bacardi O mixed with Red Bull. Yuck! Chris and Jeff decided to leave. Dave and I hung out with Coco and Jen and shut the shack down. Dave was impressed by the amount of irish whiskey they gave him for $3 a glass...he really became obsessed with it. I was happy with my water, I had already overdone it. Jen and Coco decided to head over to another pub while Dave and I decided that we would go dancing...Yay!

By the time we got to Breaktime, the DJ was only playing country tunes and the crowd was winding down. We ended up just sitting in my car catching up for quite a while before I delivered him safely through the fog back to Chris' house, where he was staying while in town. It seems that Chris drank too much because when Dave arrived, he was very sick. We used to tease Chris about becoming intoxicated by just smelling alcohol...we weren't aware of the dangers of him actually consuming it! I said my good-byes to Dave and agreed to visit him soon. On my drive home, back through the fog, I got a call from Jen. She was abandoned at a friend's house so I rescued her and took her home. By the time I was finished taxi-ing people around, it was almost 5am before I even reached my front door.

What did you do this weekend?