My good friend Mike and I went to a local bar last week. The place, the Boozgeois Saloon has been in continuous operation since 1995. It’s just the kind of place the two of us like… a bit on the divey side but with lots of character.
We took a place at the end of the bar and ordered up some drinks. Nothing fancy, just some Ice House that was on tap. Soon, more drinks were arriving and before you knew it, we were long past the “Drunk Calling” stage and had entered what I call the “Drunk Promising” stage.
If you haven’t ever experienced Drunk Promising, let me explain how it works. You get to a point in the drinking where everything sounds good to you. Bold plans that any sane individual would reject instantly suddenly sound plausible.
Even Jimmy Buffett paid his respects to it in an album liner note: “The night wrote a check that the morning couldn’t cash.”
In the past, I’ve ended up in more than one relationship because of this phenomenon. Somewhere the evening before, I had promised a girl I would take her out the next day. Next morning the phone would ring and she’d say she’s ready to go.
“For what?” I’d ask.
“You said last night we were going to your friend’s barbecue today, remember?”
I don’t, of course. But I dutifully pick what’s her name up and we head off to the barbecue. And my friend would look knowingly at me, as he knows about Drunk Promising, too. That’s how he ended up with his current wife. I just roll my eyes into the back of my head, hoping that an eclipse is magically going to occur in the next hour so my other friends won’t see how butt ugly this girl is.
Ending up with a Kennel Queen isn’t the only thing that happens when you Drunk Promise. We were running a pub run in West Seattle once, taking 200+ revelers around the town. Needless to say, free beer is a perfect storm for Drunk Promising.
This time, it came in the form of a knock on the door the next morning. I opened it. Susan was there, and she had someone with her. Or should I say, some-thing. “Here’s the keg of beer you said you’d take off our hands last night.”
My mind searched its database of the night before, and sure enough, I had Drunk Promised to take a surplus keg off her hands. “You have a week to drink it – we need the tap and the keg on Friday so we can get the deposit back.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but even for a pirate drinking an entire keg of beer in a week is tough to do. Thankfully, I have thirsty friends so we filled my daughter’s kiddy pool with ice, tossed in the keg and poured our first of many, many, many beers to come.
Drunk Promising can happen internationally as well. I remember being in Grand Cayman for Pirate’s Week one year. We had met a really funny gal who was two to three sheets to the wind at the time. Turns out she was a pilot for Cayman Air.
The Drunk Promises began to flow. “I will fly you over to Cayman Brac in the morning (which was about four hours off). It’ll just be $80 each for the gas.”
We all reached for our wallets and started counting out our Camanian dollars. We had the dough and were ready to go. We completed all the plans and when we awoke next morning we called her. She was obviously not a professional Drunk Promiser because she didn’t remember making the promise or even meeting us just a few hours before.
That’s part of the problem. You sometimes get Drunk Promisers who are amateurs, not pros. They have no intention of honoring their promise to you, no matter how crazy it sounds in the light of day when at least some measure of sobriety and sense has returned.
Mike and I are pros, of course. We know how to Drunk Promise and keep to our word, even if it means taking that girl to the barbecue when gnawing your arm off to get out of a bear trap would seem more enjoyable.
I’ve never really made a really bad Drunk Promise. I know of guys who have ended up in Las Vegas with a stranger in their bed and a ring on their finger. I know of another guy who bought a boat the night before. He knew it was a fixer-upper. But he didn’t know its top deck was sitting flush with the surface of Puget Sound in about 10 feet of water.
I do know that my pro status may be in danger. That night at the Boozgeois Mike and I had made elaborate plans to go to Archie’s for the Biker’s Wild fundraiser there on Sunday. We were going to meet up with the bartender of the Boozgeois and her friends. And we promised to show up as pirates the following Friday at the Boozgeois.
In the morning, Mike called. His head ached. He was a bit green around the gills. I wasn’t feeling a whole lot better. But, I wasn’t going to admit it. We mutually begged off on the Biker’s Wild event with some lame excuses about family obligations. And then I had to cancel the Friday appearance at the bar. In my Drunk Promise state I had forgotten that we had guests coming to town and they were arriving Friday. And as we all know, a Regular Promise trumps a Drunk Promise any time.
But fear not, I haven’t surrendered my professional status quite yet. Mike and I are keeping our date at the Boozgeois this Friday. A week late, but a Drunk Promise is a Drunk Promise, nonetheless.
Well, except for that time I promised Linda that I’d go naked sunbathing with her by the railroad tracks in Shoreline. God, I hope she’s still not there, waiting for me to show up. I should think that a Drunk Promise has a statute of limitations after a decade.
Somewhere on the Treasure Coast, writing an occasional check in the night that the morning can’t cash,
— Robb