A Weekend in St. Louis

In 1794 Pierre Laclede founded the city of St. Louis because he thought it was the perfect place for him and his cronies hang out and trade fur. In 2004 I went to St. Louis because I thought it would be a great place to drink myself stupid.

Recently a buddy of mine, moved out to "the Lou" because he wanted to work for some company that makes airplanes. I don't know much about airplanes, but what I do know is that any town that's home to the Anheuser Busch Brewery and has a big fucking arch that can be seen from any angle of the city, probably has to be a grand ole' time.

On Saturday night we stumbled down the cobble stone streets of this area called "The Landing." Positioned right off the mighty Mississippi river, the landing has street musicians spewing syncopated rhythms from every corner, hundreds of cute girls wearing tight St. Louis Cardinals t-shirts, oversized bottles of Budweiser, and these huge bars that go on for miles and miles and never seem to end.

We were crawling from bar to bar knocking down Jagerbombs, Irish car bombs, shots of Rumplemintz, Whiskey, Vodka, you name it, my liver didn't appreciate it.

The red shirted St. Louis girls were out in full force, cutting rug on the dance floor, dancing wildly to one song after another even though every other song at every bar we visited seemed to be Nelly. You know? E - I - E - I Uhhhh Ohhhhhhhhhhhh and whatnot?

I was at the bar drinking like a fish. Shot for shot, beer for beer. Signing credit card receipts like they were autographs. $30 for 5 shots? sure why not, I'm on vacation, I'm the richest man in the world, I'm hip, I'm awesome, I'm making things happen; wait i'm drunk?, and work in an entry level job, I'm broke, oh fuck, oh well, another round of shots on me.

A friend of mine was out on the dance floor chatting it up with some girls. One of the girls pointed at me and said to him, "hey?!???!! why doesn't your friend over there ever dance?"

He said, "oh don't worry, just wait, he'll dance, he'll dance, you just wait, ha ha, Just give him 3 or 4 more drinks. just wait."

She waited.

Arms flailing in a drunken mess, thumbs up in the air, uncoordinated hip movements, random leg kicks, body slanted at a 40 degree angle, no rhythm, no style, nothing resembling anything close to acceptable dance demeanor,

"Is he dying? is he dancing? is he ok?" she asked.

my buddy leaned over and said, "oh, don't worry, he's ok, he's just going to be single for a very very long time."