Our reputation with the ladies of San Diego never stood a chance.
We rolled into San Diego late on the Saturday preceding Halloween, a ragtag group of primarily sickly individuals. Steve had been feeling ill all day, having already logged four vomits already. My malady was relatively novel, having ambushed me on the drive over from our late lunch with my cousins outside of Los Angeles. Dan, on the other hand, felt simply superb.
We were being hosted by Cara and Noelle, two of Dan's friends from Jersey who moved out to San Diego the previous summer. As we drove into their neighborhood, which they affectionately called the gay part of town, we were immediately thrust into quite a scene. An enormous Halloween block party was going on just down the street from their apartment. As we circled the blocks, looking for parking, the streets teemed with glittery, half-naked men.
After parking over a mile away, we finally arrived at their apartment. Upon dropping our stuff, Steve sank into the couch and I allowed my body to become totally dependent on the support of their wall. It rapidly became abundantly clear that Steve and I had no intention of imbibing any alcohol, let along costuming up for a night on the town. This was the first affront to our manhood in the eyes of our hosts. The drunken and generally raucous shouts emanating from the predominately homosexual shenanigans outside were not helping our case either.
Strike one.
So the three of them, formerly Dan, Cara and Noelle, now the boy from Up!, Olive Oyl and a dinosaur headed out for a night on the town, leaving the sickly ones home alone in a dark room to watch How to Train Your Dragon.
Strike two.
They did not return until the following morning, implying a good night full of copious amounts of alcohol. Steve and I were recovering well; a bro-mantic evening was just the teaspoon of medicine we needed, and we were ready to head to Jolt'n Joe's to watch some football. After eating lunch, the first meal for Steve and I in about 24 hours, we engaged in some highly competitive ping-pong action. Steve emerged victorious from this epic battle as the afternoon games were concluding, so we left to meet Noelle to watch the Eagles' game. Noelle, like Dan, is a huge Eagles' fan, and she found an Eagles' bar, named Plum Crazy, nestled in San Diego. We entered and were immediately bombarded with an disproportionate number of Eagles' fans per square Californian foot. Luckily for the city of San Diego, the Eagles trounced the Dallas Cowboys. Unluckily for one of the three Cowboys' fans that were brave enough to have entered Plums, Eagles' fan are notoriously terrible zealots. This poor fan ended up getting attacked by a particularly deplorable Eagles' fan, and it did not end well for him at all.
When the game ended, we went back to the apartment to get ready for the night. Dan retransformed into the boy scout, and I suited up as Woody from Toy Story. Steve, completely lacking a costume, donned his Mexican soccer jersey and a floppy witch's hat. The six of us (us three, Noelle, Cara, and her boyfriend Ken) went to their friends' apartment for a little bit of pregaming, where we were immediately greeted with double shots of rum. Once we were a solid eight shots deep, the group of us made our way to a bar, which we promptly left because Dan lost his license and was denied entry (Don't worry kids, it was later found back at Plums). In lieu of a bar, we headed to World Curry, a restaurant that had long since closed for the evening, but because Noelle is friends with several of its employees who had both key access and a morally suspect policy of using it, we were granted entry, along with free beer from the tap and an undeniably potent smell of curry.
There is something to be said for peer pressure. It is difficult enough to feel masculine while wearing a Woody the Cowboy costume; it is impossible to feel masculine while wearing that costume and having several females half your size assail you with emasculating slurs coaxing you to drink more. Eventually, you will waver and take that next shot. And eventually the number of shots you have taken will have skyrocketed well into the double digits. And eventually you will probably black out. You might say that this should be a learning experience about succumbing to peer pressure, and it would be, if not for the fact that after taking 14 shots in less than two hours, you rarely have the cognitive function to remember anything, let alone lessons.
When 4 a.m. rolled around, as far as I can remember, the three of us were quite ready to collapse. We made our way back to the apartment where the drinking began, accompanied by Noelle and a friend, who were both continuing the onslaught of disparaging attacks on our collective manhood.
Strike three.
We awoke the next morning, feeling the brunt of a night that we don't entirely remember. After a bit of recovery time, our hosts and us headed out for a walk in nearby Balboa Park, hoping that some sunshine would help us feel like human beings again. Sadly, despite both lovely weather and beautiful surroundings, we remained immensely hungover. However, we pushed through the pain and set out onto the San Diego Bay atop kayaks, paddling right up to sea lions barking and bickering with each other. The teenage years are toughest for any species.
We successfully were not eaten by these aquatic lions, leaving us free to go play some beach volleyball with the one and only Andrew J. Bennett Esq, winning a best of three series against him in heroic fashion. Afterwards, we grabbed a bite to eat with Andy, where he bombarded us with compelling arguments to move out to San Diego immediately. However, we still have a road trip to complete, so we said our goodbyes to Andrew and made our way back to the apartment. The girls were already out for day three of their Halloween shenanigans, and they fully expected us to join them. Dan immediately began getting into costume, while Steve and I starting melting into the couch. Dan, at that point in full costume, made a halfhearted plea for us to join him, but seeing that we were watching Arrested Development with rapt attention, he quickly realized he was fighting a losing battle.
Both girls had work early the next day, so we were not able to see them before we had to depart San Diego, but Dan relayed a message that is simply not suitable for our younger readers. It is often considered difficult to make it to four strikes, but both Steve and myself, well, we are of a different breed, it seems.
At this point, I feel the need to log a defense for the two of us. The constant shift from sunrise wake-up calls in national parks to the expected "raging" in cities impressively disrupts one's internal clock. We are not usually this lame. Well, at the very least, Steve is not usually this lame.
So after about two weeks on the Californian coast, it was finally time to began our trek back east. Our next two weeks have 12 days of camping lined up, with several of the nights' forecasted temperatures set at well below freezing, with a few projected to be in the teens. We are relatively pessimistic about survival.
This post was brought to you by Sprouts, beach volleyball and men on stilts.
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