Since no one really reads this blog anymore, I feel like I have some sort of anonymity. Which feels kind of good. And what a better place to get out my experience of a drunken holiday…
This weekend I partook in a social ritual called “St. Patrick's Day”, which apparently really isn’t about being Irish, but more of having a reason of getting ridiculously drunk with tons of people dressed in green, with flashing green lights and tons glitter. Being in my early thirties, and having never really celebrated this way, I figured what the heck, I’d give it a shot. Or three.
Now, perhaps it’s the company I keep, but I realized pretty early in that I couldn’t hang. My fellow cohorts were already doing shots at 6am while everyone was getting ready for the day. It was really too early for me, so I tried to start my day of drinking at the first stop of the day, the Peekskill Brewery for “Kegs & Eggs”.
I was actually excited about this! What can be better than beer and eggs? It turns out, a lot. I think the brewery gets off on the fact that you may already be hammered because the crap they called an “egg sandwich” and a craft brewed “Irish Stout” was completely terrible, and the “traditional Irish breakfast” looked like slop on a plate. If you’re already loaded, its just filler in your belly, but for the only real sober one of the group, it was a HUGE let down. I may be bitter because they forgot the cheese on my Egg & Cheese sandwich, but I was not impressed with my first experience.
Hoping the day could turn around, we all (after picking up about 8 more Green Sparkly people & 2 festively dressed leprechauns’) headed to the Peekskill train station to grab the next train to Manhattan.
The train ride, was, Fucked Up. Never before in my life have I experienced anything quite like it. It was standing room only, and people were even standing in the areas where the cars connect for space. And of course one of these spaces a few cars up is where a bunch of my friends whom we got separated from decided to hang out. And to unify us, one of them came back to our car to “fetch” us.
Have you ever tried to navigate thru 4 Metro North train cars with standing room only? I was pretty content where I was but I was committed to this day, so all bets were off. I can’t explain to you how awful it was to traverse the cars to the final “party” destination. Not being a small girl, this made it even worse for me. I tried to use thankful humor as a way to diffuse the situation as we all passed through but lets just say I was so forcibly friendly with people that in a normal situation it would have been called cheating. Parts of me touched others that only my husband has touched. And speaking of the people, the amount of underage drinkers I passed was astounding. Kids no more than 16 years old had drunken slits for eyes in their seats, drinking their parent’s liquor out of Gatorade bottles. My shock may be from my sheltered childhood, but seriously, it was nuts.
After reaching the in-between “party” car, I managed to snag a corner near the door so I could watch from the sidelines all of the drunken behavior of the people who I had acknowledged to spend the day with. From declarations of love to girls passing though, demanding payment to pass though by showing ones breasts (which a few guys did), A guy downing a quarter bottle of rum, and a guy trying to piss out the train door… it was very entertaining. Or crazy. I continued on my sober streak because (yes, it was my own fault) I felt that there needed to be at least someone sober in case of an emergency.
Next Stop: Grand Central Station.
When the train pulled into the station, the exodus into the station from the train cars was indeed grand. I’ve never seen anything like it. The people just poured out like a can of soda that’s been dropped and immediately opened. Think of the scene in LOTR when that Oriki runs into the drain at the bottom of Helms Deep with a bomb to break into the wall…. And then all those Orcs, Goblins and Oriki run into the castle and keep coming? It was totally like that. But green.
Next installment... Bars in NYC..
