Faking It

There are only 2 reasons to move to our town, you’re going to College or you’re in the Military. Couple that primarily-young population with the lack of big city things to do around here, and you end up with a lot of drinking. To my knowledge, our town is the only one known for “Fake Patty’s Day”. Held the week before the traditional St. Patrick’s Day, it is nothing but a drinking holiday; I’m told the bars opened at 8am.

Hubby and I aren’t old. We’re actually pretty young, I’m just approaching 25 this year and he will follow right behind, but we FEEL old. Our bed time is 9pm (Our alarm goes off at 5am) we grumble when our neighbors come home from the bars after midnight. Our bodies are falling apart - if we combine our working knees, we only have one set.

I love hubby and the way we live our lives, but put us next to a few 21-year-olds and we might as well be collecting social security. It’s amazing how just a few years can make such a difference in your priorities and lifestyle. In an effort to embrace our youth, we did go out Saturday, but certainly not at 8am. We went to a communications class in the morning, helped a friend move and paint, came home so hubby could lay on a heating pad for his back and read a history book while I got ready to go downtown.

We left the house about 6:30, planning to go get supper at one of our favorite bars (Whose burgers were voted the best in the state, no big deal. They grill a mean portabella mushroom too!). We assumed that since the bars opened at 8, the crowd would have cleared out a little bit; surely no one has that kind of stamina. Apparently lots of folks do. I’ve never seen so many Kelly Green clad drunks in my life! Most of who had awesome t-shirts printed with sayings like “He thinks I’m only faking today!” or “If women can fake orgasms, we can fake a holiday”, etc. (Quick tip for the ladies: Don’t ever fake. You’re cheating yourself! Make him learn to get it right!)

After an extensive wait to even get INTO the bar, and then finally snagging a table, we had a great time people-watching, and were joined by hubby’s commander and his fiancé. We had fried pickles, an obligatory green beer, and juicy burgers (One of us had a portabella burger). I had 2 Irish Ale’s, brining me to a whopping total of 3 beers over 4 hours, on a made-up-just-to-drink holiday. I have become somewhat of a lightweight again because this left me with a pretty good buzz. Cheap drunk alert :-P

The last time we closed the bars, the only time we ever closed the bars, was early last summer. It took us weeks to recover! We had a great time on Saturday, even though we were home before 11; it was still way past our bed time.