New Year's At Mos Eisley

Let me start this post off by first saying I despise New Year's Eve. NYE is the worst 'holiday' out of all the holidays*. It's amateur hour for idiots who love to drink and that's a crowd I don't want to be around. I don't want to be around people who say, "It's new year's we should drink until we black out!". That's just not my crowd.

*My least favorite holidays: NYE, St. Patrick's Day, Labor Day

So on New Year's Eve I went out to Mos Eisley Cantina to drink quietly with the usual crowd. I arrived around 8PM to a crowded bar drinking champagne. The usual suspects were thankfully near the bar counter with the Boz and Bandit and their wives. I joined the crew and ordered a 7 & 7.

"No drinking champagne?" asks the Colonel.

"I can't have champagne," I say. "It gives me the worst headache."

"Okay then," says the Colonel.


We continued to drink our respective drinks and conversed amongst ourselves. The conversation included my hatred of New Year's Eve, how the Ottoman Empire celebrated New Year's, and the Colonel's hatred of Virginia Tech.

By 11PM both the Colonel and I were drunk and standing around the pool table where there was a group of three men playing quarters. They asked if we liked to join, which is an open invitation to two drunk people to drink some more. So of course we joined in on the game.

I don't know who most people play quarters but our game is basically you put a plastic cup on one side of the table and you try to throw quarters into the cup from the other side of the table. We each played with ten quarters so it was basically who can get the most quarters into their cups. We played best of three with a tiebreaker if needed. That's our version of quarters.

Now we didn't know these three men. Haven't seen them at the bar before. The Boz told us later that night he's never seen them either. We were too drunk to have normal conversations so we didn't even ask about their back-story's.

When we finally started playing I don't know if those guys were drunker than the Colonel and I but we dominated two games of quarters. I mean just dominated. Those guys didn't even have a chance. We were the 86 Celtics and they were the 2010 Nets.

After the games ended it was almost midnight so we huddled around each other near the big screen to watch Dick Clark embarrass himself at Midnight again.

"Why does Dick Clark do this every year?" asks the Colonel. "It's just embarrassing now. I know he had a stroke, but he should just enjoy retirement."

"My guess," says the Bandits wife. "Is that his wife makes him go out there every year. She's always beside him to kiss at midnight. I bet she just likes to be in New York at Time Square for the new year."

We don't argue with that premise because it was almost midnight. We counted down the last seconds of the year and then toasted each other as the clock struck midnight. For whatever reason the Colonel and I giggled like girls watch Dick Clark and his wife "kiss". That wasn't so much a kiss as it was really two dogs rubbing their noses together. Hilarious.

After we toasted and laughed at Dick Clark and his wife rubbing their noses, I decided to call it a night. I was blitzed so it was time to go. One call to the Boz's taxi service and I was right back at home in the comfort of my bed.

I still hate NYE, but it's alright if you spend it with the comfort of friends at your favorite place.