Nothing Good Ever Happens After 2 AM

One of my favorite TV shows is the CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother (for more on this show, see me previous blog: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-i-met-your-mother.html). In an episode earlier this year, Ted is sitting home all night, waiting for his girlfriend, who is in Europe, to call him back. Ted’s friend Robin, who he still has a crush on, is back home in her apartment. She just had a bad date with a guy, is lonely, and has feelings for Ted, too. Ted receives a phone call at 2 AM. He thinks it might be his girlfriend finally calling, but it is really Robin, who is lonely and asks Ted if he would like to come over. Ted says yes, but his friends tell him on the phone that it is not a good idea, because nothing good ever happens after 2 AM. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what happens next: Ted shows up at Robin’s apartment. Robin asks about the girlfriend, Ted says he broke up with her. They start making out. Ted says he needs to freshen up in the bathroom first, where he is really going because he feels guilty and wants to break up with his girlfriend on the phone for real before going forward with Robin. Only, he can’t find her number on his phone because he grabbed Robin’s phone by mistake. When he walks out of the bathroom, Robin tells him that his girlfriend just called. Ted now has two women pissed off at him…

I guess, once it gets to be 2 AM, you are better off going to bed, because something dumb is bound to happen if you if you go out, when chances are, you are already a little tired and a little drunk. I faced this dilemma, myself, on Thursday night. My friend Matt from college was in town for the night. We headed out from my apartment around 7:30, and visited about 9 or 10 places, before catching a cab back home. We went in, sat on the couches. It was 2 AM. Matt was surprised and excited to learn that the bars in Albany stay open until 4 AM. We could have crashed and went to sleep, but there is a dive bar named Mcaffrey’s down the street.

The saying about nothing good after 2 AM did not ring true this night. We sat next to a couple late twenty something guys and girls, along with their two hot 19 year old friends who were out past their bedtimes (the 19 year old girls were drinking sodas. 1—I tell you this because it’s true, they really were obeying the rules, and 2—I do not want some cop reading this and shutting down my new favorite bar). These guys had been coming here since they were 15. It was the only place to let them in when they were minors, so now they continue to patronize Mcaffrey’s out of respect. ‘It’s not that we won’t go to other bars. We just won’t not come here.” Matt and I thought we were gonna conclude the night with a beer or two, but no, we joined the crowd for shots. “Hey bah-ten-duh! Come ovuh here.” Other than the token leather skinned 40 to 50 year old lady in the nasty looking tube top who was their by herself, drunk, and horny, it was a good time. The real loneliness, at bars, I think is in the afternoon crowd.

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorites at 4:30. A real hick, biker type bar, but it has cheap drinks, a pool table, and dartboards. I got talking to a couple of the regulars. For some reason, the conversation steered towards relationships and marriage. Both guys looked to be in their 50’s. One had just gotten out of jail for drunken driving and being lumped in with a murder conspiracy or something (although, he says he was wrongly convicted for the second charge). He had a beer and a shot in front of him, but his buddy was going to drive him home. This guy, we’ll call him Guy #1, was on his second marriage. When the hot bartender came to replace to so-so looking bartender (I think is a rule: save the hot bartenders for prime time), he asked if she had gotten a boob job done. She said yes, but did not oblige Guy #1’s request touch them and feel them out. #1 got a little mad at me when I would not stair at her “fine looking ass” when she walked away. Guy #2, the designated driver, had on sweatpants shorts that had probably been sweatpants that he had cut down, kind of like homemade jean shorts, except not. He had an orange t-shirt, tucked into the sweatpants shorts, with the sleeves half cut off, plus gray hair, with the pony tail tied back, making it look like a Davy Crockett hat. He had been married, but “the bitch left me 22 years ago! If I had to do it over, I would have cheated on the bitch. Then at least she would have had a reason to leave me.”

I kept thinking that I would never want to be them in 30 years. One of the interesting things about alcohol, and bars, is that they do not make you happy. If you are already happy or in a good mood, they can enhance that feeling. But, if you go over a certain point, you will still end up feeling like shit. And, if you are in a shitty mood already, alcohol, and the bar scene, just makes it worse. It’s not so much the 2 AM thing as your attitude and demeanor. The 2 AM probably rings true often because we’re usually tired and groggy at that hour.