Happy St. Patrick’s Day

March 18th, 2010 by Potato

And what a St. Patrick’s day it was.

I locked myself out of the house today, what must be the first time ever in my life that’s happened. My new place has these stupid locks that automatically lock when the door closes (except at the cottage I’ve always lived with deadbolts where you need the key to lock the door, so it’s impossible to lock yourself out). I left my cell phone and my wallet inside as well.

Fortunately, a friend has a key to my place and could let me in later on in the evening… but going out with my friends was going to prove to be a challenge without ID or money. That’s when the luck o’ the Irish came into play. On Monday my new license arrived in the mail, which I picked up as I was walking to work. So I had opened it there, and left my old license in my desk drawer at work. Boom, ID, I could get into a bar.

Money was then not such a big issue: I could borrow from friends, or, as it turned out, get some from work since I had reimbursed a subject out of my own pocket yesterday, and was able to get paid back in cash today.

The biggest challenge turned out to be the lack of a cell phone for coordinating with my peeps. I got myself locked out because I was running out of the house in a big rush to do something at work… so I was at work while my friends were starting the day-long liver killing festival. I was supposed to meet them at Mike’s house. They knew I didn’t have my cell phone and would be just a little late… yet they left without me for the bar, but I didn’t know which bar.

Ah-ha! I remembered that Mike’s apartment intercom/buzzer system called his cell phone (since he doesn’t have a landline), so I just buzzed him that way. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hear me and just told the intercom that he wasn’t home (“I know that” I shouted in his lobby “but WHERE are you?”). He buzzed the door for me and hung up.

So much for that plan. Luck struck again though when another member of our group walked by on the street and told me where to go to find them.

Then it was us against the crowds. London’s a student town, and the weather was awesome today, so even though St. Paddy’s day fell on a Wednesday, there were lineups at all the bars. To try to avoid that, we went to one of the smaller ones away from Richmond St., and even they had a lineup. So Mike, like a ninja, goes and sneaks in the fire exit in the back. The place was nowhere near full, but they were being really anal about capacity (even though no other bar in the city was)… so without too much guilt, other members of our party start sneaking in. But with such a small place, they quickly found the ninjas out and kicked them out. In the frustration of being kicked out of a bar that they were behaving civilly in and paying good money for beer, one of Mike’s friends swiped a funny St. Patrick’s day hat (which I now have).

Anyway, it was a fairly crazy day. I feel like such a kid for all the shenanigans. I mean, I’m an old-ass man. I shouldn’t be locking myself out of the house, hiking around town without money or ID, let alone sneaking into crappy London bars on green beer day. But there you have it. Despite the disastrous start, it didn’t turn out to be all that bad a day in the end.

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