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On Sunday my roommate Dods and I did something neither of us has ever done before – we threw a party. It was in honor of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which takes place in South Boston right in front of our apartment. We decided we were qualified to throw a party because:
A) we’re pretty nice
B) location, location, location, location, and
C) Dods is ¾ Irish and I’m 5/8 Jewish, but I’ve never been to a bar mitzvah
We called our party the First Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Thing, making the unwarranted assumption that there would be St. Patrick’s Day Parade Things in the years to come.
Now we know we were right.
Question: How do you know you were right?
Answer: Because our party kicked ass and because everyone had an awesome time and because somebody puked on Dods’ rug and we figure if we invite everyone back next year whoever puked on his rug might have, like, flashbacks to their crime and run away out of guilt, and we’ll be like “What was that all about?” because we won’t remember that somebody puked on the rug because it will be a year from now. But that person will know. Oh, yes. They will know.
And also, to prove how sweet the party was, I just asked Dods how he would describe it and he said, “I don’t know.”
So I said, “Just give me one word.”
“Um, tubular?”
“As in, like a tube?”
“No, as in, you know, radical. Yeah. I guess that’s how I would describe the party: radical and tubular.”
This is how our radical and tubular party went down:
I woke up at eight on Sunday morning because I was so excited for the party, but nobody else in the apartment was awake. We had two guests, Joey and Sloan, who had opted to sleep on our couch and blow-up air mattress in order to get a head start on the day’s festivities. It was kind of like camping on the sidewalk outside Fenway to get Red Sox playoff tickets, except Sloan and Joey were inside, we weren’t selling tickets, and nobody was trying to beat them to the party.
Nevertheless, we admired their go-get-‘em attitude so we made them “de facto hosts,” which turned out to be a mistake. Case in point, the following conversation with Sloan:
ME: Congratulations, we’re making you a de facto host.
SLOAN: Great. What’s a de facto host?
ME: Just make sure nobody steals anything.
SLOAN: Oh, okay. Wait. What if I want to steal something?
At nine o’clcok I roused everyone by blasting The OC soundtrack because it was time to start making Patrick’s Punch. Patrick’s Punch is our own invention. This is the recipe:
½ liter of Sprite (allowable substitutions: any clear soda)
10 Bud Lights (allowable substitutions: any light beer, preferably cheap)
A splash – well, actually, a large dump – of Arctic Green Apple Kool-Aid mix (allowable substitutions: any green powder that tastes like a jolly green rancher and/or Clorox with green food coloring)
2 liters of Cossack’s vodka (allowable substitutions: there really aren’t any. Unless you can find a cheaper handle of vodka than Cossack’s, which we couldn’t.)
At first I tried mixing this all together in a recycling bin lined with a heavy duty trash bag, but we soon found out that this container is prone to leaks, and when Patrick’s Punch leaks, it turns into a greenish/blackish goo that lines your hardwood kitchen floors and fuses to the soles of your sneakers. So we shifted the remaining punch into a large salad bowl, but the bowl wasn’t big enough to handle all the punch, so I ended up getting even more goo on the floor.
It sucks to have goo on your floor because it’s hard to clean up the next day, but it’s good to have goo on your floor because if you trip and land face first and you accidentally lick the floor, it tastes like Arctic Green Apple Kool-Aid, unless somebody already stepped in the goo where your face landed.
On Friday I had ordered a keg from Al’s Liquor store.
“Bud Light?” Al asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Or wait. Is that your cheapest keg?”
“Nope. It’s eighty for Bud Light, sixty for Pabst.”
“Oh, give me the Pabst!”
So we had a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon sitting in our “backyard.” “Backyard” has quotation marks around it because it’s not made out of “grass.” It’s made out of “asphalt.” Having a paved backyard is bad if you’re a child who wants to play croquet or something, but it’s good if you want to play pong, which is what we were planning to do because we were men, not croquet-playing children.
By the way, if your child is in to croquet, I’d probably take him to a child psychologist because it’s pretty weird for a child to be really into such an obscure form of lawn recreation. He might have something wrong with him.
The only problems with playing pong in our backyard were that it was thirty degrees outside (which we could deal with) and there were persistent gusts of wind that tended to push shots backwards instead of forwards, or into a neighbor’s above-ground swimming pool instead of our cups, depending on whether you were playing with the wind or against the wind.
We played 1.5 games outside despite the elements, but then the wind was getting even worse and Dods and I were sufficiently affected by the beer and punch to think that it was a good idea to move the pong table into the living room.
People started circulating through the apartment and between Dods and I we probably knew around 15% of them, but that was cool with us because everyone seemed to be having a good time, especially the two members of the Haverhill, MA fire department and their friends from the Salem, OR fire department who had flown to the east coast just for the parade. Great fire, guys.
Did you get the joke I just made? Great fire? And I was talking about firemen? If you don’t think that’s funny, then you’ve probably never hung out in a fire department when there aren’t any fires to put out, so things are pretty slow, and to kill the time you just talk and laugh and tell fireman jokes, but then one of the guys tells a story about a department store fire that took his best friend’s life and everything gets real quiet because everyone was happy when they were telling jokes and having a good time, but then this one guy had to go and kill the mood.
When the parade went by we all watched it out the window, but honestly, a lot of us had stopped remembering things. We do know that there were a lot of kilts and bagpipes and marching bands, but there were also, inexplicably, a brigade of Irish Storm Troopers and other characters from Star Wars, including, riding in a convertible and waving, Darth Vader.
Speaking of convertibles, there was one that drove by and it was obvious that it was occupying the role of “random really nice car that’s just in the parade to make people say, ‘Wow, that’s a nice car!’” but it was actually a crappy car. The thing is, none of us can remember exactly what kind of convertible it was, so this story probably sucks. Dods thinks the car was a Pontiac Sundance, but I think that’s ridiculous. A Sundance is too crappy.
Actually, the worst part of the parade was the two women who were pushing a baby stroller.
If you still don’t believe that our party was awesome, here are some REAL emails from some of our friends who were in attendance. (Their words are in italics, my thoughts in response to their words are not.)
From Brett:
Congratulations on an excellent party. I think the [punch] eased me into that "I won't remember what I am doing right now tomorrow" state. I came to in Chau Chow City while eating General Gau's chicken, which is surprising for the obvious reasons.
- I’m not sure exactly what the “obvious reasons” are, but it probably has something to do with the fact that General Gau is not a real person, and even if he were, he probably wouldn’t have a chicken named after him.
From Brittany:
Helllooooooo,
- Hellloooooooo
So I still feel hungover, how bout you?
- Actually, I’m okay now. I went to bed at ten, woke up at three in the morning with a terrible headache, downed two Advil and a bunch of water and slept until nine.
Talk about a welcome to boston rage fest.
- Yes. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
I only got a few pics from your place thanks to the fact I was black out at 5---but really what the hell happened?!
- Nobody knows.
sorry if i got sloppy at all
- We were all sloppy. As for you, I honestly don't remember.
and yes i do have your sweatshirt and have even washed it.
- Wonderful. And we have your blue sweatsuit jacket but we haven’t washed it.
but i digress--the pictures you can check out under the "when irish eyes were smiling" album at http://community.webshots.com/user/trilb.
- I couldn't get this to work.
wanna accept me as your friend on facebook, loser...I mean I understand that we only physically met Sunday but I thought we had a connection, haha.
- My facebook email address is old and doesn't get sent to me. Thus, I never know when people invite me to be friends. Now that I know, I'll be sure to make it happen. The connection is REAL.
Brittany
- Adam
PS-Tell Dods that I am hitting up the BPL (boston public library for those not in the know) and WILL bring proof next time I see him. Nice to see I can let things go, huh?
- I have no idea what this means.
From Brittany:
Dods and proof...do you remember when we had a 30 minute debate about my claim that Thomas Edison was the first person to say "hello" over the telephone? and we researched and googled online for a legit 1/2 hour?! HENCE the fact I have a personalized pong paddle named "BB PROOF"...no? none of this rings a bell?
- Actually, it does now. Kind of.
And finally, from Sloan, a.k.a. Windpower:
Dear Adam and Dods,
Thank you for allowing me to be "that guy at the party". You provided the party and I provided "that guy". I appreciate the ongoing friendship that we have been sculpting so nicely since you guys moved to southie (it is still ongoing right?). I think it has probably been at least a year since I acheived that magical level of drunkeness that you two provided me last sunday. I appologize for any and all beer that I spilled. Apparently it was more than just the first one which I accidentally knocked off as soon as we moved the pong table inside. I really don't remember too much. This is how my story goes with bits and pieces from friends to fill in my gaps:
9:00am - up and at them
9:15am - swig of vodka (thanks adam)
9:30am - Dods's eggs
10:00am - First freezing cold game of beer pong
10:20am - Sloan is the only one already "feeling it"
10:40am - move inside part way through second game of pong
10:45am - Sloan knocks beer on floor with strong to quite strong practice swing
11:00am - 3:00pm - Sloan moves from game to game – cards, pong, whatever consuming or spilling any beverage that is with in a 3 foot radius. Activites include: shotgunning beers with kate and brett, Collin's card game that gets you really F'd up, peeing of the back porch in full site of neighbors, falling down repeatedly, silly attempts at pong, etc.
3:00pm -4:00pm - Becky attempts to get Sloan to lie down on Adams bed and sleep it off. Sloan consistantly curls into a ball and moans the words "home...home...hooooommme" while Becky covers him in coats. Everytime within five minutes Sloan is back out stumbling around the party.
4:00pm - Ari decides to take Sloan home.
4:45pm - Sloan has magically teleported to Central Square in Cambridge because he has absolutely no recollection of getting on or off the T.
4:50pm - Sloan musters up the strength and togetherness to order a spicy chicken sandwhich and a junior bacon cheeseburger.
5:00pm - Sloan leaves wendy's full, drunk, and happy to be headed home
5:00:08 - Sloan explodes his spicy chicken sandwhich and junior bacon cheeseburger on to the Mass Ave. sidewalk. The two sandwhichs are mearly a pace car for about 2 gallons of beer and mysterious vodka/beer/sprite/koolaid mix.
5:01pm - 5:30pm - the rest of the trek home involves cutting my hand on a fence, burning a nickel sized hole in the front of my coat with a cigarette, and falling down in such a way that I have a bruise beginning to show behind my left ear and on top of my left shoulder.
From here I fell asleep on my couch, climbed into bed fully clothed at 7:00pm and slept for 12 hours before getting up to go to work. I was hung over until monday night when 24 came on.
Again Thanks. I had an awesome time! I hope we're still friends.
-Wind Power
He left out the part when he sprinted down our hallway for no reason, hit the left wall, hit the right wall, and landed face first on our kitchen floor, which if he had chosen to lick it, would have tasted like Arctic Green Apple Kool-Aid.
And that’s how you know you’ve thrown a party that was both radical and tubular – when your floor tastes like Kool-Aid.
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