Today’s Music: The Fratellis – Look Out Sunshine
Note – Happy holidays to every last one of you. If we were hanging out enjoying each others company, when the topic sung around to white christmases, this is probably the story I’d tell.
So consider this a holiday laugh gift, and I hope you enjoy it!
*Disclaimer – The story below is as true as I remember it. But I was pretty drunk at the time.
So I’m in this bar.
It’s snowing like hell outside, a fresh layer of several inches on top of the inches already on the ground, for this particularly cold, white winter.
It’s me and Pat, the owner/bartender. We’re drinking pints and shots, trading stories, telling lies about the women (this was before TMWGITU).
They’re keeping themselves covered to avoid seeing what’s coming…
By about 0030, we’re the only ones there, not even any stragglers wandering in, and the snow just keeps on falling.
“Want to walk down to Tracey and Don’s place?” asks Pat.
I think to myself. The snow is falling hard, but the wind is minimal. It’s a half a mile, about a ten or fifteen minute walk. I still have most of a pack of cigarettes.
“Sure, why not.” I answer, and down the road we head.
We get there. Tracey and Don are behind the bar, about two or three people in the bar, none of whom I know. They know me though.
“Guapo? Guapo…hey! You did those naked bar dances here! It’s great to meet you, man! I’ve heard those stories!”
Another of the patrons is a brunette girl, about 5’11”, college age. Not hammered, but she is definitely not on her first drink.
So Pat and I sit back, start talking with Tracey and Don, who, it turns out, have never heard the first naked bar dance story (I know, right?).
So, with the lure and softening of multiple free shots of Jaegermeister, I launch into a very animated retelling.
It’s a great story, and the group is laughing (with me) as I finish.
Tracey pours another round and says “I’ve never seen anything like that”.
“Sorry” I answer. “I’m not near drunk enough to do it again.”
“That’s alright” says Don, passing me another full shot. He looks at the girl. “Have you ever done anything like that?”
She starts laughing at him. “Oh my god, are you kidding?” She turns to me. “How drunk were you when you did that?”
“Too drunk to remember how drunk I was.” (Can you imagine I was ever single!)
“You could do naked snow angels!” yells Don. I look up at him. The girl laughs some more, as does everyone else.
We keep talking, drinks are flowing freely, and as happens, someone needs to go to the bathroom – the girl.
While she’s up, Pat comes over to me.
“You realize we have no interest in seeing you naked, right?” he asks.
“Thanks Pat. I’m both offended and relieved”, my usual answer when guys say things like that to me.
“But we want to see her do one, and if you do, she might too” he finishes.
Well, being one to sacrifice myself for the cause, I say that if she agrees, I’m more than happy to do it too.
She comes back from the ladies room. Drinks flow a little more freely, jokes, stories, laughter.
Tracey brings up the snow angel again.
The girl is still reluctant, but not as much.
More drinks (I’m pretty well wrecked at this point, and I know the 15 minute walk back will take me at least a half hour, with the weaving.
I don’t care if it’s my fault. I’m still blaming this.
This goes on a little longer until I say
“I’ll do it if you will.”
She looks at me with a calculating expression. “Will you go first?”
“Sure. But once I do, you can’t back out. You know, embarrassment shared and all that.”
She thinks for a moment.
“Ok.”
Crap.
Jumping into a cold pool? Done it.
Run across snow to a hot tub? Fun.
Laying down in the altogether and flailing in frozen water? How on earth is that considered a good idea?
But seriously, it needed to be done if only to slow down the amount of alcohol pouring down my throat.
So I step up, kick off my shoes and jeans, my shirt and hat, my boxers.
But not my socks.
No idea why. Did I mention I was drunk?
And out the door I go.
And IT’S. EFFIN’. COLD.
I lay down, I wave my arms up and down, and yes, I open and close my legs. There is snow in places snow is not meant to be.
And there is naked in places naked is not meant to be.
And I learned that night, that if there is ever a speed snow angel competition, I’m a shoe in for the gold.
So I pop myself back up, stumble laughingly back into the bar (through the other laughing stumbling patrons), pull my coat (just my coat) back on, and drink my delightfully warm(er than me) beer.
The group comes back in, and now we’re waiting for her. She’s reluctant. Understandable – even in the pre-internet days, running naked around a bar is never a good idea. But eventually, she holds up her side.
She goes into the bathroom, strips down, then streaks down the bar, shoots out the door, does her angel and dives back in.
The whole place is cheering and applauding, and we’re all (including her) laughing our heads off.
She gets dressed. I start to pull on my clothes. Except the socks. Those I pull off. Because they were soaked.
Epilogue:
I go into that bar a month later. Winter has lightened a bit, and that first hint of spring is in the air. But the bar is holding onto winter.
In the form of my socks.
Which are nailed to the wall with a commemorative “First Annual Naked Snowman” marker.
But it looks so pure…
Guapola 