Drinking Story: My First Legal New Year's Eve

Dateline: Philadelphia, PA, December 31, 2001. I am now finally able to celebrate New Year's Eve the way it was meant to be spent: drunk in public singing "Auld Lang Syne" with a bunch of other drunks at a bar. I ran into a little problem, however: I didn't have any other friends around me who are also 21. One of my friends from college lived in Philly, and he said he knew some places that he could get into. He also lived about a block and a half off South Street, which is one of the more famous drinking areas of the city. I decided to take him up on the offer, since he was also giving me a place to crash. This is the recap of the night (as best I can recall):

I get to Aidan's house at about 8pm. We shoot some pool, and drink a couple beers, just kinda killing time. We venture out onto South Street at about 9. Most of the bars are carding already. I try to talk my friend in, but we're getting nowhere. We finally find a restaurant that isn't carding, and we start drinking. After two beers and a Jack and Coke each, we venture back out into the Philadelphia night.

We kind of wander around aimlessly for a while, down to Columbus Avenue. I'm not entirely sure when we turned back towards the city, but I'm pretty certain we walked past the Ben Franklin Bridge. As we're coming back towards South Street, we find a sketchy looking bar. Perfect. We go in for drinks. And are the only white males in the establishment. We have a couple drinks, get a couple funny looks, and then continue on our way.

On our way back, we run into a bunch of people who went to my high school. I am fairly drunk, and am rather chatty. The girls do not seem thrilled to see me. I am perplexed by this, and continue to talk, until it hits me: these girls are friends of my psycho ex from high school. I cut myself off mid-sentence, and go searching for another bar.

We get back to Aidan's house before we can find another bar that will let Aidan in. We decide that our best bet is to hit up the restaurants. Aidan and I both have not had anything to drink in a good while, and he suggests shots of Jim Beam before we head back out. I can only handle one, as all he had for a chaser was red wine, which I detest. Aidan knocks back a second shot, and we head back to South Street.

We find another restaurant that will serve us. Two beers and a tequila sunrise later, it is approaching midnight. We head down to the Penn's Landing footbridge, and watch the fireworks. Aidan, being the stoner that he is, manages to find the group of people smoking weed in that mass of humanity, and takes a toke. I sense bad things coming. We walk back, and run into some girls who tell us to meet them at Fat Tuesday's. Maybe my sense was off.

Fat Tuesday's is carding. Time to find another bar. We try going back to the restaurant we started the night out at. Aidan tells a bunch of junior high kids to come with us, because he'll buy them drinks. I realize that my first instinct was right. And, of course, the place we started at is now carding and charging a cover. Bloody hell.

The next stop is rather amusing. Me and Aidan find ourselves in a fairly classy establishment. And we are both rather smashed. We start talking to some guys in their mid-30s. Aidan is in full-on drunk bullshit mode. He tells these guys that he's a 29-year 0ld stockbroker. I am too drunk to care, and just go along with it, as long as the bartender keeps the beer coming.

We make one final stop for the night. The really funny thing is, I'm about 99% sure there was a bouncer there, but me and Aidan just walked right by him while he was checking other people's IDs. We sit down at the bar, and continue to pound back beers. After two beers, Aidan says, "Watch my beer, I'll be right back." Aidan does not, in fact, come right back. I decide that I shouldn't let his beer go to waste, and start to polish it off. Last call comes, and Aidan still hasn't come back. I wander through the bar, checking out the upstairs and the bathrooms, looking for a passed-out Aussie. No such luck. So, I am at a bar in Philadelphia. I am far too drunk to drive down the block, let alone all the way back to New Jersey. And now, the guy who knows the door code to his house is no longer with me.

I go home, and Aidan's brother is still up. I ask him if Aidan came home. He tells me no. I should have just said "Fuck it" and passed out at this point, but instead, I intrepidly venture back out into the night to find Aidan. I cover about 10 blocks on South Street, but do not find the Aussie.

When I knock on the door of Aidan's house this time, no one answers, and the lights are off. Seeing as how it is about 3am, and I am in no mood to piss off my friend's parents by ringing the doorbell, I sit down on the porch to mull my options over, and also hope that Aidan stumbles by. Philadelphia's finest show up first, though. Apparently, one of the neighbors called the cops, and told them I was trying to break into the house. Yeah, like any thief knocks first, and then sits down on the porch, facing the street. Whatever. I try to explain my situation to them, hoping to mask how obviously drunk I am. My one thought is that I am spending the night in the drunk tank.

Luckily for me, the cops are women, and in a fairly good mood. They merely inform me that I either can go inside, or go somewhere else. I decide to walk to my car. The cops decide to follow me. I unlock the door, and make a big show of tossing the keys onto the passenger seat. I am not about to get tossed in the slammer for an attempted DWI. The cops go on their merry way. I go back to the house to make one last knock, and if no one answers, I am sleeping in my car. Aidan's brother answers the door this time. I tell him I couldn't find Aidan, and promptly go upstairs and pass out.

I wake up somewhere in the neighborhood of 7:30 in the morning. The bedroom I slept in had big windows that faced east, and I didn't think to pull the shades before I passed out. The sun is beating on my eyes. I open them. Big mistake. Instant headache. I feel like total shit. I sit up, and see Aidan walk past my room. I get up, and try to figure out what the hell happened to him at the bar and afterwards.

Aidan is worse off than I am. He doesn't know what happened, only that he came to walking around Philadelphia a good 40 blocks from his house at about 6am. And he only remembers walking into a diner or a police station, he wasn't sure which, and then walking back out and getting a cab back to his house. He is exhausted, and passes out. His room doesn't have the sun. I can't fall back asleep in the room I'm in. I wind up giving up on falling back asleep, and just drink water in hopes of sobering up.

I leave at around 11am, and I feel like I'm trying to beat the clock, before I pass out from lack of sleep. I make the horrible mistake of deciding to catch 676 back to 95, because that takes me right across the route of the Mummers parade, which I had completely forgotten about. Sitting in traffic watching string bands strut by absolutely sucks. Doing it with a pounding headache and an impending sense of doom is even worse. I am beginning to get worried that I will just pass out asleep in my car before I can get back to Jersey. I finally cross the parade route, and drive as fast as I can home. I make it to my bed, and instantly fall asleep.

The lesson learned here: never party with an Aussie on New Year's Eve.