This past Saturday, I had a pleasant blast from the past.
My Junior and Senior years of college, I lived with two girls, Laura and Amie. I knew Laura from highschool, and Amie I met through Laura. I am going to take this moment to mention the fact that both Amie and Laura are married now, and that makes me feel weird, because I still feel like I am 19 years old with a fake ID.
Anyway, this past Saturday, Amie came up to visit. I hadn't seen her in almost a year, and we hadn't necessarily done an amazing time keeping in touch.
We were absurd in college. We'd go out a few nights a week, and once went about a month without spending more than two dollars the whole month on the drinks we'd imbibe. Holla.
We liked props. We'd bring out a tape recorder, and interview people. Or perhaps a microphone, and pretend Amie was an on-location reporter. "Back to the studio, Stacy!"
We also liked aliases. I know that Amie had been Leslie a few times, and many people were calling me "Mandelicious" even then. But our best aliases came about from the purhcases of some really tacky initial necklaces. When we wore the necklaces, she became "Aloha," and I "Manastascia." Yes, I am aware that my alias sounds like the stage name of a drag queen stripper. Deal with it. You'd be surprised at how many people believed that shit!
After she arrived, we discussed the plan. We were to go out to eat, go to the Marquette game, then go out to a few bars.... This presented outfit challeges. Amie likened what she was to be doing to superman changing. I called it awards show changing. Either way, we were going to have to change our outfits a few times. I wish we would've taken more pictures! We should've captured all of our outfits. Oh well!
So we put on our dinner outfits. We met Danielle outside of Murphy's, where I left my car. Danielle then drove us to the restaurant.
Let me just tell you that the freaking waitress had to have thought we were crackheads. This cute little girl had to come back at least four times before we could even decide what crazy drinks we'd like to enjoy over dinner. I had to tell Amie the
Vegas story and
the story of my interactions with the terrorists (which Danielle helped me to tell). Plus, the drink menu was written in a fairly humorous manner, so we were enjoying that too much to focus on what the actual drinks were, and what we wanted. Poor girl!
We ate our meals and drank our drinks. Amie drinks like a damn fish. I have never seen someone inhale a beverage in such a way. She drinks sooooo fast! It's absurd. She finished her first drink within five minutes. It was an impressive feat. Unbelievable, really.
After dinner, the cute little waitress returned to tell us that our desserts were being paid for by one of the owners, and that the special was "vulture cake with swoop swoop sauce." I felt so bad for this girl for having to come and say that to us! I almost died laughing. My face hurt by the time we left the restaurant because I had been laughing so hard I was crying the whole meal. I barely even ate because I was cracking up the whole time. Made for good leftovers!
Next event was the Marquette game, so we changed clothes in the car, and Danielle dropped us off at the game. Time to sober up a little! Our seats were great (Thanks, Ousmane!).... Section 200, Row D, seats 9 & 10. That's half court. Amie was hilarious. She mentioned that she had seen video clips of Tom Crean yelling on tv, and now she could hear him!
Game was entertaining, as usual. I was quite disappointed, however, that Ousmane didn't start.... I love hearing "At 6'10" from Dakar, Senegal.... Oooooooooousmane Barrrro!" Maybe next time. He's in Maui now. I am jealous.
Anyway, after the game, we took the bus back to the Annex, and walked across the street to Murphy's, where my car was parked. I knew that Buddha was supposed to be working, so we thought we'd pop in.
To our surprise, Parker from Decibel and his friend Matt were standing at the end of the bar. Fancy that! And Joe, the manager, was working as well. It was practically a Tuesday night at Decibel, except.... Well, it wasn't really like that at all. Haha.
Anyway, Parker informed us that we had been on the jumbotron at the Marquette game. Awesome. I hope that I wasn't doing anything stupid. I really have to be cognizant of the possibility of jumbotron action when I am sitting in the family section!
We had a couple drinks and did a couple shots, then Buddha showed up, and we had some more. Buddha was Buddha, and it was hilarious. Amie showed again her striking abilities of being able to pound drinks. Joe even remarked - "damn, girl, you thirsty?" Hilarious.
After Murphy's, it was awards show/superman time again. We went home and spiced things up, spruced up, if you will (and I know you will!).
Next stop was Cush, which was a good time. That place is starting to grow on me, I think. It was here that we were informed that we drink high-maintenance drinks, because they stop the flow of drink-making because they are bizarre and out of reach of the bartender.
44 North and Sprite and Malibu and Coke? Really? Bizarre. When you see me coming, move the bottle into the flow! Haha.
Anyway, after our drink at Cush, we of course moved on to Decibel.
By the way, I am having an almost impossible time focusing on the task at hand, which is blog-writing. I'm pretty sure it's the third day I've come back to it. Fiff. I need to lock it up.
Decibel was a glove as usual. We said his, and I made about a billion introductions. We met up with the Prince.... There will be more about him and such later.
We did some drinking, obviously, and did some shot-taking.... You know the deal.
At one point, in VIP, we were talking to Hen
(see the blog about the wifebeater bar crawl) when suddenly Amie pulled out her recorder. Yes, that's right, her recorder. And no, I don't know why this whole thing is a link. I only wanted it to be the part that is in the parentheses. This is pretty damn intense.So yeah. Woohoo! No more link! I never claimed to be a computer genius.
Yeah, so Amie pulled out this recorder and just starts playing right in the club. Hilarious. Hen was agog. Just loved it.
Back by the Prince.... Picture time!
Here's Amie and I....
When I introduced her to Dustin, he said that he could tell that we caused a lot of trouble in college. I have no idea what he is talking about. Look at us! We practically have halos! Just beeming with innocence (ignore the fact that I look hammered).
Next it was time to take a pic with the Prince...
Wow. That is a... really nice picture. Umm... Notice the green star on his left shoulder? I had decided that since I am a teacher, I was going to bring out foil stars and give them to deserving individuals. Amie kicked it up a notch and more or less covered some people, like Scooter, with them.
Whilst the camera was out, Amie suggested that we take a picture of the fine fellow with the nice abs. I think the point was actually to capture the abs themselves.... So back to Arinze we went....
For the love of people with functional eyes, Arinze, would it kill you to do a crunch or sit-up now and then? I mean, come on. That is just shameful. Haha.
I think poor Arinze is blushing here.
Moving on.... When I came back from taking the picture of Arinze, the Prince told me that Shawn had refused to pour us the royal shot. He was quite disappointed, so I went to go see what's up.
When I walked to the bar, before I could say anything to him at all, Shawn said, "Mandie, I am not pouring six shots of triple sec."
Shawn, I do not blame you. Also, I must say that it is entirely too funny to me that every time I try to type your name, I accidentally type "Shaqn" because I am so used to typing about Shaq, apparently. I need to pull my life together.
Anyway, I really don't know what self-respecting bartender would just pour a bunch of shots of triple sec. Especially without a good explanation, which is what Shawn asked for.
By the way, I am considering just leaving the name wrong here. Haha.
I promised Shawn that I would explain the story to him. Obviously it wouldn't have been easy to do in Decibel on a Saturday night, so I figured I'd put it in a blog and send him the link.
There wasn't a whole lot to the rest of the night. We met up with LL after the bar was closed and went to Ma's where I threw a lil fit because I couldn't enjoy any Cream of Chicken and Rice soup.
So here's the story. The history of the Armanian Empire, and how Triple Sec became our royal shot.
My sophomore year of college, I began dating Mike. He was a bit of a bullshitter. Totally made up absurd things. For example, I recall a scenario in which he convinced a friend that he was allegic to ice cubes. This went down whilst he stood in a swimming pool. What?
Anyway, the summer before junior year, he moved from the dorms into a shithole. I mean, into a house. He had 6 other roommates. I knew most of them, either from having gone to high school with Danielle and Mike (I met Mike through Danielle, so I knew a lot of these people for awhile), or from hanging out with them when I visited Mike in Milwaukee in the dorms.
There was, however, one roommate that I did not know at all. That was Matt.
Matt's grandpa lived in the Philippines, and apparently was a big deal. I'm told he is like a Hilton over there, and that when Matt visits, he is treated like a Prince.... They iron his socks and underwear and such.
Anyway, I still swear to this day that Mike told me that Matt WAS the prince of some foreign land. I take full credit for having perhaps forgotten which land he mentioned, and just deciding at some later point that it was Armenia.
So life moved on, and I just was kinda scared of Matt. I was a little more shy at this point than I am now. I just observed.
The types of things I observed were that Matt rarely went to class, wore expensive clothes, did not seem to have a job, did a lot of poker playing with serious amounts of money (to my poor ass, haha) both online and in casinos, and that he spent money like it was his job - buying shots and rounds of drinks like crazy, buying me food at Michael's and Omega in the middle of the night, etc.
Anyway, a year and a half goes by, and I barely talk to Matt. The entire time, I think he's the prince of Armenia. Absurd, yes, I know.
I just figured it was like... Coming to America. My favorite movie! Matt just wanted to live in a rat-infested (no, that is not an exaggeration) shithole for a couple years while he did the college thing and checked out America before he went back to Armenia to rule on his throne.
Oy. I'm sounding like a moron here, aren't I?
So I'm talking to Mike, like a year and a half into these guys living together, and I confess that I thought that Matt was the prince of Armenia. He just started cracking up, and he told me that this was not the case, and he denied that he had ever made such a claim. I'd like to say for the record that his claim that he didn't make the claim is an erroneous fabrication. Wait, what?
A couple nights later, I am down from Madison visiting, and I drunkenly start confessing to Matt, who I am practically talking to for the first time, that I'd been thinking that he was the prince of Armenia for almost two years.
Hilarious.
So the night rolls on, and when we're driving from the bars to Omega, Matt is yelling out of Steve's (who would later be known as Oha, just like the guy from Coming to America. And yes, we do tell him to do stuff and say Oha and then clap twice) sunroof to his people. Saying "Helloooo!" in a regal way to passersby on the sidewalk. Absurd.
Later that night, Matt and I would bond by me sitting on his lap in Eric's room and me seeing my first few seconds of porn, the Paris Hilton video, whilst sitting on his lap. Yeah. Kinda weird, but whatever. Also notable is that at Omega, we bet Eric that he couldn't eat everyone's (there were like 8 of us) garnishes in under three minutes. He did it in like thirty seconds, but was fooled into believing that he was just a little too slow and that he'd have to buy lunch for everyone. He was so sad and disappointed! Hilarious.
Anyway, that's about all there is to the story of that night.
Months lated, a bunch of us went to Florida after we all graduated. One of Mike's roommates, Frank, had a timeshare in his family, and for graduation, he got it for a week for us.
There's a group picture of everyone that made the trip, minus the goat (Winston) that was purchased and returned after it made horrible noises all night. The prince is the second from the left, Eric (we'll get to him in a second) is front and center with the red hat, and I am all the way to the right, with my ex, Mike. I was pretty much accustomed to being the only girl (or in this case, one of the only girls) in a group of a billion guys. I guess I just get along well with boys. Don't know why. Because I love basketball and hate drama? I dunno.
The trip was an absurdity. We were quite focused on one thing.
And that thing was drinking.
Here's what the refrigerator looked like when I arrived.
As you see, the only food in it is a can of parmesan cheese. Don't get me wrong, we definitely ate, but that was not the focus. Funny how I don't remember where the food was kept, though, ha. Also, keep in mind that things such as Tequila were in the freezer, and that several trips were made to the liquor and grocery stores on St. George Island that week.
It was just before one such trip that a big change was made. We were all sitting around, when I hear Matt say something. He said some sort of name at the beginning of the sentence that was not mine, so I didn't really pay attention. It was at that point that Mike said, "I really don't think you should ignore the Prince when he is talking to you."
Whaaaaaaaat?
Matt repeated himself, and said "I asked if you needed anything from the liquor store, Princess."
Princess?
I am not really a girly girl, so I am pretty sure that I had never been called princess before, by anyone except for my grandpa. Matt said that since he was the Prince, I'd be the Princess. Works for me, I guess!
Anyway, over the course of the week, we developed a royal family. We decided that Eric would be our jester, because he is hilarious. He re-named himself the Butt Jester, because one of his nicknames is Buttram, because of his last name.
The three of us became pretty close, as though we weren't already. We just were kinda all on the same page. The Butt Jester and I had a weird relationship that involved a lot of cuddling. Yes, I cuddled frequently with my ex's roommate, and my ex didn't care. Like I said, it was weird. He was a good cuddler, though.
Anyway, when the last night of the trip rolled around, many people were tired. Their need to party had been met. They did not have the insatiable desire to party that Matt, Eric, and I shared. So the last night, when everyone was trying to sleep, we were trying to make sure that no alcohol was left behind. Isn't that some kind of legislature that Bush has been trying to get goin'? Oh, no, that's No Child Left Behind. And, for the record, it's stupid. But I digress.
We had been going through the alcohol, and finally, we were almost done. Our game of "Drinking Dredle" (Which is AWESOME, and really needs to be played again) had done a serious number on the supply of alcohol, as did the casual drinking of the week. Guess what was left?
Triple Sec.
I was really into Margaritas at this point (yes, it is supposed to be capitalized), and we had nothing left but triple sec. During our poker playing, the Butt Jester made us special cups (giant styrofoam ones) that said "Prince," "Princess," and "Butt Jester" on them. Awesome.
And, as the night went on, he kept pouring giant "shots" of triple sec into them. We were the only three people doing it.
We then decided that that would be the royal shot. There were three of us, hence the triple. And, well, we didn't have a choice.
So there it is. The story of how the Armanian (we changed the spelling) Empire was formed. The story of how I became the Princess (and yes, it still catches people off guard when they see on Matt's phone that I've sent a text and find out that it's not his girlfriend, Cari, who is one of my best friends, but rather me who is called "Princess" in his phone). And the story of how Triple Sec became our royal shot, and a little justification as to why I got so many bottles of triple sec for my graduation party (and why my mom bought a couple bottles of it for us to drink at said party). There's still a bottle on the party cart!
No, it does not taste good. No, it does not really have much alcohol in it (less than wine, haha). But yes, it has sentimental value. And yes, it almost always illicits a hilarious reaction from the bartenders we ask when the whole group of us needs to do the shot. Usually, people don't even know what to charge us, then they get the managers and ask them, and we usually get it free because it's so weird.
"I'm gonna need eight shots of triple sec please...."
