Entrapment:
OK folks, Uncle CH here has been invited to tell a few stories so buckle up, sit back and enjoy the ride. I have subjected myself to a lifetime of abuse so you don’t have to or at least you can cut to the good stuff sooner.
I title this chapter in the day as “Entrapment” because a place that serves you liters of beer, gorges you on mountains of bratwursts and parades a bunch of idiots around you is only asking for this sort of trouble. I probably glossed over a few points and I’ll leave it to Connor to fill in his version of the events (which I am sure will be nothing but a vicious pack of lies to besmirch my good name). The shame of it all was this was my favorite bar. Members of our pack have since tried to get in only to be turned away. I have very few regrets in life but this is one of them.
There was an infamous trip where Mal and Connor had come to visit me in New York. It was Mal’s first trip and undoubtedly his last (for shame). Day 3 into this trip we had already single-handedly funded the educational aspirations of New York’s finest strippers and had decided to do something special in light of our plans to attend Oktoberfest later that year. The day started off innocently enough with calling a few barroom heroes to meet up at my place for Rock Band, beer, shots and generally get prepped for the day ahead, it was 10 AM after all. I should add that I was masterful on the (mock) guitar while Connor pulled a diva refusing to play the songs on the set list (*I told you I wouldn't sing gay sings unless you got me the tray of green M&Ms, edited by Connor*) .
We finally staggered out of the apartment around 1 and got to the bar by 3 - a trek that should have taken 30 mins but lasted. Moving this drunken lot was like herding cats which we all know this is difficult even for a Scotsman with a claymore in hand on a dark and stormy night confronted by cats, which is secretly a coven of witches. PDP be praised but I digress.
Anyhoo, we get to Zum Schneiders which is a classic German beer garden filled with a never ending series of hipster douchebags that now populate the lower east side of NYC. Gone are the glory days of hardcore, squatters, homeless and the shamelessly horny. Now it is all Disney and NYU. A friend of mine who had been waiting for us there told me that we had to “catch up” by chugging a liter of beer. Despite drinking all morning I found myself incapable of arguing with that sort of logic so I obliged. Over the next several hours we consumed six-seven liter steins of beer and a mountain of bratwursts. Mind you Connor and I were not ordering the food, our friends were. We were just the guardians of the pass and exacted a heavy toll on any order the waitress tried to get past us.
We were quickly descending into madness when the waitress recognized Connor and I, because we are awesome of course, but also because we tried to tell her our friend Kal Varnson was in love with her and proceeded to start an impromptu version of the dating game among the attendees. The cacophony from our table kept rising as I tried to lead the bar in a rousing rendition of “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles” thinking it was the German national anthem and Connor posing for every camera in attendance. Somewhere in this mess I noticed a group of hipsters gathering at the table next to us. They were all wearing the uniform – jeans, button up shirt (tucked in) and baseball caps. Like a bull I zeroed in on the one wearing the red cap who immediately drew my ire with his inability to chug a liter. A stein got broken and our friend Rousseau (a rugby-sized French chef) grabbed one of them by the throat. While technically they did nothing at all to us I am sure they deserved it. The cowered off in the face of our sheer machismo but it was at this point that the manager, rather arbitrarily I might add, now decided it was time for us to leave. Filthy Phil pleaded with them in German that we would behave and from the jaws of defeat we were saved and allowed to continue on with our festivities. Unfortunately, this is when the evening started to take a dark turn. LOL
Bathroom break - this is when things go a bit grey. Mal and Filthy Phil were conversing about god knows what when I spun 180 degrees to punch a mirror directly behind me. I have no idea why I did this but I am sure there numerous Freudian implications. So now I am standing there with glass embedded in my hand when the manager opened the door. “You’re out!” “For what!?!” I snarled back before breaking up into laughter. I kick opened the stall door in the bathroom to grab Connor who had now fallen asleep, no idea how I knew he was in there. We begin to stagger out the door, breaking steins on our way, trying to figure out where to carry on the party. Most sane people would go home at this point but we carried on – after all what I thought was a broken hand only turned out to be a severe infection. Who would have thought a bathroom mirror would have been so dirty.
Its 6pm, we have no idea where the children are and I am looking for personal redemption.
Redemption:
After the debacle at Zum Schneiders, we decided that we needed to go to a place where we could chill out a bit. It seemed some of us, not saying me, were getting a bit unruly and at this point, the bratwursts and beer were storming my stomach like the Wehrmarcht across Poland. BTW – I can make WWII jokes. My uncle died in a concentration camp during the war. He fell off a watch tower.
We ended up at a hookah bar to smoke water pipes. The world was already in a terminal spin so why not add some Turkish tobacco. I am starting to realize that I am going to be down for the count soon unless I do something drastic so I go to the bathroom, luckily no mirrors, to purge and rally. It works like a charm and I am on the rebound.
Connor by this time is on the dancing floor like a whirling dervish teaching the belly dancer some new moves. I grab both hookah pipes, tear off the filters and imbibe the sweet, sweet nectar….
*If I remember correctly, after that we returned to the non-judgemental solace of our neighbourhood strippers, edited by Connor*
The End
