The funny thing about drinking is that it’s the great equalizer: Everyone’s attractive and wildly entertaining. Situations are easily classified into the broad categories of ‘fun as hell,’ ’stupid as shit’ or ‘needs to get its ass kicked.’ And, when you’re drinking, the venue doesn’t really matter - as long as there’s a steady stream of booze.
Sunday was the perfect embodiment of that last point.
Tragically, I was up at 9 a.m. that morning to cook pancakes. I say ‘tragically’ because a) I had been drinking until 6 a.m. the previous morning (as in three hours prior), b) the Daylight-Savings switch caused an already long night to become an exceptionally long night and c) when my phone rang at 9:19 a.m. with the cheery ‘we’re here and ready to cook breakfast!’ announcement, the only response I could muster was a preverbal ‘arrgHHHH.’
But I quickly rallied, drinking pomegranate-and-Champagne mimosas while pouring myself a Bailey’s and coffee. Before you judge, I was still drunk and the only way to get through the day was going to be a large, large quantity of adult beverages.
You might be wondering why I was up so early. Sunday was the annual South Side Irish parade, which is renowned throughout the city as ‘the place where green beer becomes green urine, mostly on homeowners’ lawns.’ I had pre-purchased eight tickets for a bus ride there and back to the tune of $120, and I was definitely going to get the most out of my investment. All we had to do was put on green apparel, show up at a bar two blocks from my apartment sometime before 11:30 a.m. and have our drinkin’ hats on.
We kept our end of the deal. Casey Moran’s, unfortunately, did not.
As we walk up, there’s a school bus out front. While this was not exactly the transportation I was expecting, I was tingly with the excitement of being able to drink beer in - and possibly do a keg stand on - the vehicle that used to take me to grade school. Apparently all of Wrigleyville had the same idea, however, because the woman in charge of the event was trying to cram 100 people on a bus built for 50. It just wasn’t happening.
‘We’ll just catch the next one,’ I said to my friends. ‘They’re leaving continually until 11:30. Let’s go inside and do shots.’
‘That’s the last bus,’ the woman in charge says, having overheard my comment.
‘It’s 10:48,’ I say. ‘When I bought these tickets, it said we could leave at any time up to 11:30.’
‘Well that’s not right,’ comes the reply.
I have been drinking, so I have no problem with confrontation. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ I say. ‘You need to get another bus.’
The woman, eager to avoid conflict with me, my seven friends and the other 30 people in line behind us, capitulates. ‘I’ll call the bus company and have them send a bus back,’ she says. ‘But it could take a while.’
This is where the ‘the venue doesn’t matter’ part of the equation kicks in. For the next hour and a half, our best friends were styrofoam coffee cups filled with Miller Lite and a parking meter, because we stood on the sidewalk at the 3600 block of North Clark Street drinking, taking asinine pictures and generally being nuisances.
But here’s the funny part: I really didn’t mind all that much. Sure, after 90 minutes it was time to do something, i.e., get my money back and demand free drinks (both happened), but for the first hour, I was having a blast. We met a girl named Ivy who didn’t want to be our friend, but we tried to adopt her anyway. We gave directions to a guy whose face and shirt were covered in dried blood. We waved our beer-filled cups at cops driving by. When we finally gave up and went inside for the free drinks we demanded as payment, the bus showed up (of course), but by that point no one was even slightly interested in the parade.
So I never made it on the bus. I never made it to the Land of Green Urine. I never made it farther than two blocks from my apartment, in fact. But that’s what the spirit of the South Side parade is all about: Drinking and good people. I’ll call it a success.
I’ll also call it ‘a 24-hour bender with only three hours of sleep,’ but who’s really keeping score?
