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• Drinking in the new year...

Loyal readers of this column know I’ve never much sugar coated the joy alcohol brings me. The occasional quiet scotch while reading a book is always captivating. The far more frequent 15 beers while watching a ballgame also gives me immense pleasure. Hell, I can even enjoy that extremely rare time when I do a few shots of bad tequila at an after hours party. Anyways, you know how people always say that New Year’s Eve is the amateur night of drinking? Well, in possibly the greatest study of all time, I decided to see how a professional, such as myself, views the intoxication of this holiday. Geeze Louise, it hasn’t even started yet and I can already feel it getting a little ugly.

7:15 p.m. — Yeah, I know it’s a little soon to begin, but I figure the early start will count as my handicap. I want to make it fair, afterall. The first thing I notice is that the folks out tonight are dressed up more than usual. I guess it makes sense if you don’t go out all that much, special night, special clothes, special drinks. The professional doesn’t usually concern themselves so much with wardrobe. In fact, the only clothing concern is usually if this garment is expendable if the evening turns to shit and I happen to fall down or decide to pour a full beer over my head. Nothing a person does while drinking requires any sort of outward fashion.

It appears many of the people are dressed up because they have gone out to dinner first. This really strikes me as a rookie mistake. Very few people eat the kind of food they’re used to when they go out to dinner. If you’re venturing into a somewhat uncharted drinking territory, it’s best to know what’s inside of you and what can be expected of it. If nothing else, it’s nice to know if you’re vomiting because of some sort of food poisoning or from the gallon of vodka you’ve ingested. You’re sick either way, but it’s still nice to have some helpful information for the emergency room doctor who’s treating you later in the evening.

8:50 p.m. — It appears most of the folks I drink with on a regular basis began drinking early and are now ready to head home to ring in the new year sound asleep in their beds. Those lucky, lucky bastards. I do a quick shot with them, they leave, and my heart breaks just a little bit. I’d been drinking beer up until that shot, but now that I’ve broken the seal, I plan to let my drink selection get more exotic as the evening continues, when in Rome and all that. I see a group of people who are already way ahead of me on that idea.

I think there’s a guy on his fourth or fifth chocolate martini. I curb the desire to ask him if they sell men’s clothes where he got his little outfit. I also feel obligated to pull him aside and explain the painful and important difference between something tasting good going down versus tasting good coming up. Yeah, I know it seems like a little piece of heaven right now, but don’t let it fool you. It will bite you in the ass. I once thought Boone’s Farm Country Quencher was about the best beverage I’d ever tasted. This was minutes before I was hanging out of a car and actually saw my stomach lining on the outside of my mouth.

I do, however, take this opportunity to order myself up an Irish Car Bomb martini. It’s Baileys, Jameson, and a splash of Guinness in one of those cute little glasses. It doesn’t make me feel especially manly, but it does taste pretty good and I feel like I should get aboard the stupid party wagon. Considering my skill set, it doesn’t really affect me much. In fact, I could drink about 30 of them and still walk on a balance beam. I fear this fella isn’t going to have the same constitution.

11:00 p.m. — A few people give a little yell since it’s officially the new year on the east coast. I gotta say, if I’m watching TV at a bar, the only ball I want to see being dropped is by a football player, but whatever. I do another shot and pray the next hour goes quickly.

12:00 a.m. — I gotta tell you, for all the hoopla, the ringing of the new year doesn’t really do much for me. Its actually sort of comparable to a heavyweight title fight in boxing, a ton of anticipation, followed by regret for ever getting excited about the damned thing in the first place. I would actually be upset if the column weren’t about finished.

So, the supposedly greatest study in the world fizzled out around 2:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Sadly, I’m still a little sober and really came up with no usable data to make a true decision whether it was amateur night or not. Even if many of the folks out weren’t true professionals, I still had sort of a good time. I kissed a pretty girl at midnight and got a column written, so it could have been far worse. Now my only concern is whether or not I should attempt to deduct my drinking expenses from my taxes this year or next year. I should really check into that.