Reunion Friday Night

I need to make two points before I undertake a recap of the most power-packed Friday night of my life.

1) I need to get one of those breathalyzers that drunks use to prevent them from getting additional DUIs for my laptop. I got crushed on Friday night and ended up order 3 hooded sweatshirts and a mesh practice hat from the Toledo Rocket team store.

2) Just finished Manhunt by James Swanson. Its about the 12 days after Lincoln was shot until Booth was killed. Very good, a lot like Erik Larson’s books. I am currently jumping into Joe Posanski’s new book about the 1975 Reds.

Here we go……

Friday Night of Reunion Weekend

3pm- Land in Charlotte-Douglas, call Timmy to let him know. Sit in the airport in a famous CDI rocking chair, listening to Appetite for Destruction and people watching, while pretending to read. Even though this will be the first time I have set foot on sacred Dcat ground since walking off the stage drunk and hi-fiving Dr. Lou Ortmayer, I have been to Charlotte-Douglas about ten times since graduation. Underrated airport, the gates/terminals are piss poor but the main terminal is actually pretty sweet.

330pm- Timmy picks me up, I can all feel the onslaught of brotherhood that is upon us. We catch up and head back to his apartment, throw on some tv and start pounding beers and having a one on one brotherhood, before we have to get back to airport to pick up Wilson. I had about four beers, and because I still get drunk after beer #3 I start to stumble around the apartment.

5pm- Head to airport to pick up Wilson, the drive sobers me up. We scoop up 6 and make our way to exit 30. Unfortunately we don’t have any beer in the car, so we hit a gas station close to airport and pick up two tall boy Miller Lites and Timmy grabs me a tin of dip.

530pm- Finish the beers, pull off at Exit 28 to another “gas station”. I put gas station is quotes because it was Cashion’s on Exit 28 with the world famous beer cave. Snap up 12 Southpaw bottles, 12 beast lite cans, some gum and two disposable cameras. Timmy is the king of Charlotte real estate so we force him to find one of his signs and take pictures by it.

6pm- Pull off 77 on to Exit 30, don’t recognize it anymore. There is all this new red brick construction including the hotel that we are staying at. Walk in and behind the desk there is a Dcat homecoming display, featuring jersey #51. Now if you haven’t read one of the hundreds of books written about the 2000 10-0 Cats, you might not know that #51 is retired because of Jon “Hell in the Middle” Davis. Davis aka Kid Kabob will be meeting up with us in the next couple of hours and no one would get more joy over having their jersey featured in a hotel lobby, so Timmy, Wilson and I are borderline giddy with this surprise in our back pocket

630pm- Call a car service and head to Vinnie’s Raw Bar, http://www.vinniesrawbar.com/, a staple of our college experience and a place that serves $1 bottle beer and has jailbait hostesses. Crush the porch overlooking Lake Norman with buckets of blue gills and some solid apps.

800pm- Order food, Davis shows up, crush bucket #4. Timmy lobbies unsuccessfully lobbies to take home the inflatable tackling dummy. Pile into the JailBlazer and head back to the hotel

9pm- walk into the lobby and show Davis his jersey display, he gets jacked up. Head up to the room and slam cold beer while wearing sunglasses. Davis breaks out the ipod dock and we start getting fired up for the night ahead. I think we might have played that Kings of Leon Sex is on Fire song ten times, leading to asking each other throughout the night “Psss…Hey (insert name) is your sex on fire?”

10pm- head on over to the Brickhouse, the one bar in Davidson College, and start the reunion. BTW, I am of course rocking a Riggins Rigs tshirt and orange rimmed aviators while everyone else is in some sort of button down/sweater. I refuse to wear the prep uniform on vacation.

1015pm- See The Vogs and can immediately tell that Out-at-Davidson Vogs has come to play. If you read this blog regularly you may have read an early post I had about the different versions of yourself, well Out-at-Davidson Vogs is the greatest version of any female in the history of time. Hug a bunch of people, take a couple of shot, drink a handful of beers.

11pm- Head out to the porch to find Chuck, my frosh/soph roommate. Emotional reunion. Hang out with more dudes from 2^nd Rich that ended up being my friends all throughout college. Get fired up as I hear that a few people have started watching FNL because of my recommendation and have the DVDs in their Netflix list. I need to be able to talk about Eric, Buddy, and the Riggins brothers with everyone I know.

120am- Realize it is getting close to last call. At this point I believe I have two choices….A) stay until the bar closes and head back to the hotel or B) Call the Vamanos Van and head to campus. Obviously I choose the latter. Unable to rally anybody to come with me, I board the Vamanos Van and chat up the driver. Confused that it wasn’t a student behind the wheel, I nonetheless tell him to take me to F (huge Senior apartment complex).

130am- Completely ignored by everyone for about 20 minutes, until I convinced 3 dudes and one girl to let me shotgun a beer with them, leading to me getting on a Beirut team. At this point, I am crushed which means I am awesome from cups 10 to 3, but can’t hit the final two to save my life. Luckily, I have a teammate that can knock down the last two, two games in a row.

3am – Party breaks up, call Wilson to see where those guys are. Find out that they made it to campus and were at the outpost. Head across Patterson Court to the outpost, find Timmy, Wilson, The Vogs, Christina, and some other 2004 grads. Head to Connor for a late night dance party. Shirts off, champagne bottles open, complete domination, Davis shows up half boasting/half complaining about his $400 bar tab. Pretty sure the cops came and broke it up around 5.

5am- make a break for the hotel, get lost. Call Wilson who is the back of a cop car that he and Timmy convinced to drive them back to the hotel. The cop is able to find me based off the cross streets I gave him. Head back the hotel, try to tip Johnny Law with a 20 spot.

530am- pass out on the pull out couch

Saturday/Sunday recap to come……..