Wings Night

I was out at an Irish bar I sometimes go to in Chicago the other night for the always classic "wings night." I'm guessing pretty much every city has at least one bar that has some variation of this at least once a week. You know, a bunch of guys huddled around a table chugging down pint after pint of cheap beer and sloppily jamming as many chicken wings down they're throat as humanly possible in a two hour period, with about two rolls worth of paper towels covered in hot sauce all crumpled into a pile in the middle of the table? Eyes fixed on at least one of the 10 t.v.s that are mounted at every possible angle of the bar, while your buddy is rattling off some random baseball stats and you wonder if he realizes that you really don't give a shit that Wade Bogg's hit 187 singles in 1985. And at any given moment you can look around the bar and see at least 6 people licking their fingers with absolutely no shame. Even girls. Attractive girls. Covered in hot sauce.

I sometimes wonder if a couple has ever met at a wings night and later got married. Fast forward 10 years, and you're trying to explain to your kid how you met mommy, "Son, when I saw her slobbering on her index finger that night with all that hot sauce smeared on her chin, I just knew she was the one."

At one point in the evening I ended up talking to one of my buddy's older brother's friends. He was a guy in his early 30's, who had downed about 3 pitchers of beer and subsequently decided to spill his life story on me. He used to drive a flashy sports car that he couldn't afford, dated a girl that was out of his league who had an appetite for Chicago dance clubs with $30 door prices and $8 martinis and worst of all he liked to run up legendary tabs on the ole' plastic.

He went on to explain in great detail about how he was in debt up to his eyeballs and then pleaded with me not to go the same route that he did.

I reassured him that I have a car that breaks down all the time, I can't dance to save my life, and as far as I'm concerned a Tab is a refreshing sugar free beverage in a red can.