Gus 
Saturday, January 13, 2007, 15:11 - Highlights
Man, is this ever a story.

So on a whim and largely out of boredom I called Sean, a guy who was in my high school class (and apparently is in love with a 40 year old married woman with 2 kids) and now lives in this 20,000 person town which happens to have two private colleges in it. We made plans to hang out this weekend, and though I thought we'd decided on Saturday, he called me Friday evening (yesterday) wondering whether I was coming up and I assented. A 45 minute drive and a phone call from a gas station later, we met up in a Cub Foods parking lot on the edge of town, he stumbling up on foot as his dad's place (where we were to spend the evening as it is better equipped with cable TV and internet) is only a few blocks away.

Now, I showed up around 6:30pm, but by then Sean was so wasted that he could hardly formulate a sentence, stand up, or hold a drink. Not exactly the best impression to make when I hadn't seen the guy in like 3 years, but I thought whatever, I'll roll with it. So we went over to his dad's place and had a beer and he showed me his Indian motorcycle (ostensibly it was rather strange that I'd never heard of the brand, and ostensibly I have things to learn about bikes before I acquire one of my own). Then we walked (well, Sean fell twice en route, but we made it) in the freezing cold (it somehow went to like -10 C here overnight, though it's been +8 or so since I arrived) over to Applebee's, a chain restaurant which doesn't have much for food I can eat. In fact the only things sans meat on the menu were appetizers, but we were sitting at the bar so it didn't seem too weird to order just that for food. I was kinda surprised that Sean was served beer actually, but that wasn't to be the end of it.

So anyway, we ate there and then had the bartender call us a cab to take us downtown, and we even got Sean's "favorite taxi driver", some guy from Texas. We went to a bar called the Contented Cow, which was actually kinda cool. It had some British theme going on and had good Scottish Ale and Winter Porter on tap, and there was even a bad cover band playing. We sat near the front by these two girls, and when Sean pointed out that they had been looking at us (which indeed they had been), I got kinda nervous as he wasn't really in a smoothtalking state. He announced he was going to have a smoke outside and asked me, rather loudly and almost for sure being overheard by the girls, to start talking with them as he was too shy. I didn't really want to end up in that situation, though if he'd been more sober I wouldn't have minded talking with the one sitting by me. He came back though and struck up a conversation about their Winter Porters, and I kind of tried to take over as it was just too embarrassing. I then talked with Kate, the one near me, for a while, and she ended up being pretty cool. She's majoring in environmental studies and is spending her final semester of undergrad abroad (I've started a trend), hitting various European cities including Amsterdam. I told her I'd take her out while she was there, and she should be arriving in March or so I guess. Anyway, the whole time it seemed like the other girl who was stuck talking with Sean was not too happy about it, and when Sean went up to buy her a drink he was told that he and I had been cut off. He then asked me whether I'd been an asshole to the bartender or something as he didn't understand why we'd been cut off. Hmm.

This gave me an excuse to leave, so we told the girls goodbye and I gave Kate my email and we walked over to this bar where everyone seemed way too keen on their image called Rubenstein's. It was a typical American style college bar where business student types sing karaoke and start fights, and thus wasn't much to my liking. Sean was upset that I hadn't invited the girls to come with and wanted to go back to the Cow, but I downplayed that as a bad idea and instead we just had a drink before heading to the last bar in town -

the VFW. Heh. It was populated with about 8 middle-aged farmer types, which I thought was kind of fun as it was rather authentically American and I'm kind of into doing American things while I'm here. However, right as I walked in this older guy of maybe 55 or so called me a dumbass. I wasn't sure why, and as I'd had a few drinks in me I was a bit more pushy than normal, so I was a bit vocal about how he didn't know me and how I wasn't sure why he'd call me that. So he called me it a few more times. I thus said something like "well, you're a cancer whore, which in the country where I live is what people call each other in situations like this." He was not happy. He came over all pissed off, telling me he's going to kick my ass or something, and the whole bar was all up in arms trying to calm him down but also telling me what a terrible thing it is to call someone a cancer whore. Whatever, it's a different culture. These people should respect that I say. Eventually we "talked it out" and it turns out I look just like his 13 year old son (yay), who, apparently, is a dumbass. The guy shook my hand maybe 10 times and even tried to buy us drinks, but Sean had already ordered us two Miller Lites (which I wasn't drinking) and two gin and tonics (both of which I drank). I even gave him my email address for some unknown reason, and he, his wife, Sean, and I all shared a taxi home (which was good as Sean and I were out of money at this point).

Sean then passed out on the sofa with a blanket while I was left to fend for myself, curling up fully clothed and without bedding on the love seat. Needless to say I didn't rest very well, and I even yacked twice when I woke up. What's with that? I don't think I drank enough to deserve feeling as bad as I did, but I felt pretty bad. Perhaps Sean will feel worse. Anyway, I snuck out of there around 10am before he got up as I just wanted to brush my teeth and shower and escape the love seat. Hope he's not too mad about that.

The whole thing just reminds me of this Canadian TV show that David and Andy like...

I also got a call back from Luke's mom, and just because I don't have a Minnesota driver's license (and thus a picture ID with a valid address) I can't get in. Absurd. Well, at least he and I (through her) exchanged snail mail addresses which will be nice. Whenever I move back to the States I'll get another DL and then I should be able to go see him, though there is talk that he may be going into a stepdown program where he could get out in less than a year. Not holding my breath though.

I'm off to visit yet another blast from the past, Nicole Knetter of Arby's fame.

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