Just Another Wednesday Night...

So one day last week, I was walking home from class, and I thought: no one's at home, I might as well take my time to get there. So I stopped at every spot along the way including the Tesco Shopping Mall. Wandering through said mall, I noticed the map of said shopping mall. Included on the map was the "crèche." I will freely admit that, until my first year in law school, I would never have known the word "crèche" meant, even though I am a practicing Catholic. But in my first year, we spent a lot of time on the separation of church and state. And during that first year I learned what 14 years of catechism did not teach me; which is to say, the crèche is the cradle into which the baby Jesus was born. I had seen the word "crèche" on several maps of malls, and even on the map of my own campus, too. And I wondered, as much as this is a Catholic country, to they really have Nativity scenes in all the malls and on every campus?

So I followed the map to the crèche. I really wanted to see if the mall had its own nativity scene. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was the daycare center!

...

I've always been a big believer in the premise that shared experience is the way to be better friends. One good way to pull that off is drinking together. If you don't believe me give it a try! Here's the problem though: when you happen upon folks when they are drunk, but you are not, the premise doesn’t work so well. Here is what happened to me that same day last week; that is, the same day I discovered what crèche means here.

...

So I walked into the door to our 'flat' and heard boisterous noises coming from the common room. I went to my room, dropped off my stuff and went to see what all the 'crack' was about. Entering the common room, I see that one of my roommates, we'll call him [C], was drinking with his two buddies playing XBOX. Let's call his friends [A] and [B]. [A] is absolutely shitbombed. [B] is medium, as is my roommate, [C]. I say "hey lads, what's the crack?" Now, 'crack' is a gaelic term, spelled "craic," loosely translated as 'what's the fun?' Apparently I got extra credit for using a gaelic word, because the lads all but got up and tackled me: "wot's the crack! For fock's sake we'll show ye! Here - give 'em some absinthe!"

Three shots of absinthe and a couple of beers later, I was wondering what I had done to myself. But what could I do? Obviously I needed to "represent," right? Right?

"Paddy! We're goin' to CP's [a club downtown] aren't you coming with us?" Was the next thing I remember. Right! Off we go! I walked, more deliberately than was probably necessary, out towards the front door. But, I heard a panicked voice from the common bathroom. I sneaked closer.

"Is everything ok?" I shouted.

"Everything's fine!" came the voice from inside.

"Okay," I said, "just checking because we're heading out now."

"Patrick? Is that you?" came the reply.

"That's right," I said, recognizing [A]'s voice, "aren't you coming with us?"

"Christ! I can't work this lock! Will you help me?" [A] said. What could I say at this point? I was the last one out of the flat, and admittedly the lock is tricky. Oh, fuck it.

"[A], listen to me closely: pick the doorknob up, and the turn the lock the wrong way, then the right way, that's the trick to it."

{jiggle, jiggle}

"I can't do it Patrick! Kick the door down, I'll stand back!"

"No! For fuck's sake [A] settle down and listen: just push up on the knob, then turn the lock one way then the other!"

{jiggle, jiggle, click!} The door opens.

"Patrick you're my feckin hero! Did I tell you how much we love Americans here!"

"Yes, yes," I said, "let's hurry and make the cab."

...

Walking (stumbling) out to the cab, [A] pushes his phone and a ten euro note into my palm. "Christ, Patrick, do me a favor and text my girl that I love her!"

"Cut the shit, will ya?" Sez me, "I don't want yer money or yer phone!" And yes, I did my best to affect an Irish accent back to him. It seemed to work. He took the phone back but not the ten. I used it for the cab. That's fair, right? Right?

We jumped in the cab; we being me, [A], [B], and [C]. Problem: we forgot that our other roommate [D] was supposed to come with us. This only dawned on us halfway to downtown (or "city centre" as they say here). On the way downtown, two things happened. First being that we realized we had forgotten [D]; second, [A] passed out. So, we ignored [A] and made some frantic calls to convince [D] not to take it personally and to come downtown as soon as possible. We tried to get the cabbie to turn around and get [D], but he wasn't going for it. For whatever reason, he said it was against regulations to take 5 at a time. We offered him an extra 10 euro (where'd that come from?), but to no avail.

...

We arrived out a block away from their favorite club about eleven o'clock. Getting out, we had to deal with problem number 2: on the way down (a five minute ride), [A] passed out. Before you get on your high horse, explain to me how you never passed out before the party was over. That being said, part of the fun is, in my opinion, making fun of those who pass out sooner rather than later. We nudged [A] to get out. He did, but upon standing up he said, "I'm having trouble."

He then proceeded to take two steps which I can only describe as 'sideways' in a game of 'Mother May I,' except the two steps ended with his head taking a nasty bonk on the side of a concrete wall.

Trying my best to ignore the sound that [A]'s head made against the wall, I said to my roommate, "we ought to put him in a cab and send him back home, so long as he can say his address out loud. He's spent."

Suddenly, my roommate [B] grabbed my shoulders and said, louder than necessary, "don't say that! He's not a wasted resource yet!" Aside: the next day, [B] admitted to me this was his Environmental Science brain talking, and moreover, he thought this was the funniest line of the night. Obviously I am still learning my audience for comedy here.

As he did this, I looked up the block (where my eyes were forced, by the turning of my shoulders), and I noticed the bouncers of the club we wished to go in. They were pointing down at us, as if to say, "make note of those drunks, let's not let them in unless our jobs depend on it."

To Be continued...