It’s 9:32 PM, and your dumbest friend is explaining how candyflipping for a Rufus du Sol set last summer changed his perspective on community to the girl sitting next to him in a metallic Nissan rogue. Your buddy up front is desperately failing to remember facts from a Netflix documentary about the country your driver immigrated from, the girl sitting diagonally from you is zooming in on the crevice of her enemy’s arm fat, and the kid your sharing the back with isn’t understanding that no matter how loud he screams into the phone, his buddy already inside the bar isn’t going to hear him. This Uber ride a fucking nightmare ride, but you have two shooters mixed into something carbonated and loaded with high fructose corn syrup, so it’s tolerable. When you guys arrive at the bar you’re surprised by the line. You think to yourself, I’ve been to this place so many times, and it’s never that great. Look at these fucking pathetic losers waiting in line for this, and then you, yourself, enter the back of the line. Your plan for the night is very simple. You want to spend less than sixty dollars while ending the night saying the same thing Deion Sanders said to the Boulder football team (I’m coming). Have you done this before? Yes. Do you fail more than you succeed? Also yes. Will you most likely end up passing out on the couch to a Joe Rogan clip while dreaming that you’re the mayor of Roku City because you’re greened out. Absolutely. When you get stamped and walk through the door, the girls you’re with find their friends, and you start hunting down a drink. But before you go, in an effort to support the women in STEM movement while also making sure her friends see what you’re doing, you ask the girl you’re most platonic with if she wants something.
This is a smart, strategic move that you’ve mastered for years now. It’s early in the night, and she will remember how nice of a gesture this was, but you’ve also opened up a potential opportunity for her to mention to her friends that you’re a decent enough guy. When you finally get to the front of the bar, you rip a shot of something white and grab two rum and cokes. No amount of holding an egg on a spoon as a kid prepares a young adult to navigate his way out of a crowded drink rail with two full Bacardi cokes. One wrong move and two dollars of liquid could spill on a stranger’s arm, so you do what Matt Ryan has failed to do all season and protect the football. While dropping off the drink, you overhear the ladies talking about Taylor Swift. You don’t exactly know the facts of the situation, but you do know that your cousin in her early thirties was talking about Taylor Swift over Thanksgiving, and she was upset. You wait for the right moment and then go for it by saying fuck Taylor Swift. I mean, I used to like a lot of her old stuff, but she canceled her concert on my cousin or something and now I hate her. Before you even finish what you are saying, you look up at six faces staring at you like you’re George Zimmerman walking through an HBCU campus. This ship is going down faster than FTX, so you tap the closest friend on the shoulder and refuel on drinks.
This is the beginning of Moneyball. It’s time to rebuild. Once you’ve had enough drinks where you feel comfortable dancing to a song you’ve never heard before and humming the lyrics incorrectly, it’s time to try your luck elsewhere. You and your friend go over to a different group of girls, and honestly, at first, it’s going well. Your destiny with a girl friend group is single-handedly determined by how much the girl who dressed funny for Halloween likes you. Ten minutes into the conversation, you’re impressed with yourself. You went from a disaster to this girl showing you the cheese board she made in Jackson Hole a few weeks ago. All signs point to taking her home until she gets a text.
Oh my god, Katie, Barney died!
Who the fuck is Barney?
Her childhood dog, you asshole.
Life in the big city.
