It was my roommate/landlord/co-worker/friend, Jack’s, birthday on Sunday, so I took it upon myself to throw him a “party” on Friday night. I wanted to reserve a private room somewhere so he could “mingle” and “work the room” and “network” and “invite hot girls in to enjoy his bottle service, ifyouknowwhatImean”, but I couldn’t get the bars in our area to agree to give me one unless I promised to bring a hundred people and buy a buffet for them. So I gave Jack two non-reserved-room options:
1) a divey Irish bar that my friend Jeff said Jack would like, with a pool table and ping-pong and darts and, like, 1.5 stars on Yelp, or
2) a stylish 1920s-style speakeasy with artisan cocktails and small plates that promised to not have a wait to get in despite the super-high rating on Yelp.
Of course he picked the dive. I hemmed and hawed and suggested that maybe we should just go to dinner instead, but he said it was his birthday and going somewhere nice was going to make him feel old. I said, “Do what you want. People have to pretend to like it,” but I really meant, “I know I’m supposedly planning this party for you, but there’s not a chance I’m going to stay for more than a half an hour.”
But it turned out to be this toooootally not-horrible bar that was not tiny and not crowded and not sticky, and people who said they weren’t going to come came, and everyone played games and caught up and ate wings, and no one got celiac disease, which is apparently common among the Irish, along with small penises. I don’t know. Google it.
Our friend Nik and I left and slogged through the ice and snow to pick up Kamran at his apartment and then took a cab to a sushi buffet in Koreatown called IchiUmi that’s as big as a football field and always full. On the way, the cab driver–who was Southeast Asian and may hold different ideas about hilarity than we do–told us a long-winded joke about three men who were 86 years old. One of them died, and the other two went to his son’s house after the funeral. “How old was he really?” they asked the son, and he replied, “92.” The two men looked at each other and said, “Should we go home?”
And then the cab driver laaaaaughed and laughed and said, “Do you get it?” And the three of us laaaaaughed and laughed, and Nik said, “Do you stay or do you go, right?” And we all laaaaaughed and laughed.
No idea.
Jack and the others didn’t make it to the sushi buffet before it closed, so we met them at a nearby KyoChon that had pretty walls:
Jack is making an important drunken point
Kamran is moody
The guys really love CVS
It was one of those nights where everything worked out just fine and we felt young and unstoppable in New York City. I didn’t give Jack a hard time for not making it to the sushi place, and I had nothing bad to say about the bar that I expected to hate, and I didn’t get stressed about running around with snow-soaked hair. But then we went home at midnight, because we actually are old.
Happy birthday, Jack!
17 Comments
Sounds like a good time to me, especially that being home by midnight part. ;)
Celiac disease and small penises? I thought we Irish just had bad knees, a tendency toward alcoholism and intense cravings for carbs in the form of potatoes.
IT JUST GETS WORSE AND WORSE!!!!
Happy Birthday, Landlord! Now go watch some hockey and play some video games on your fabulous 3D tv.
And drive Ett nuts. That’s funnest of all.
Thanks Cassie! I’m stuck in Calgary tonight, so will probably have no choice *but* to watch hockey, though I’ll make sure to make up for the missed day of bugging next week.
Jack stole my birthday, and now he’s carrying on like he owns it. You’re abetting him.
The only one I can forgive is Nik, and that’s only because of the intensely arousing pictures of him having his way with that slutty chicken wing.
Finders keepers! That still counts if I stole it, right?
Awwwww……Happy belated Crusty!
Sorry I missed your Bday.
Thanks for the great night Katie (and for keeping that whole 1.5 stars thing from me)! I’m pretty sure that’s actually my drunken/confused expression, after being told the cabby story.
Wish I was there! Belated happy birthday Jackie!
Thanks Ashy Smashy!
This post is testament that New Yorkers are hotter than Austinites and I should move to NYC.
But more on point, dive-bar birthdays are always my favorite. (After a nice dinner.) Looks like a lot of fun, snow and all!
Happy birthday, Jack!!
Thanks Dishy! For whatever reason I googled “Dishy” just to see what came up, and found out that it actually means “sexually attractive”. All this time I though you just really loved dishes.
Happy belated Jack. But on the real, you know damn well that I don’t celebrate your Bday. I don’t do birthdays that I don’t get a day off of work to celebrate!
Belated thanks Charlie Brown! Umm .. technically my birthday was on a Sunday, and you know you got that off because of me, not because of that other dude people talk about.
Midnight actually sounds pretty late to me.
So… you know… fair warning.
Because I’m going to start to ask you lots of questions about the weather.
Obviously.
Gotta love nights like that! And now I have that song in my head….