All my rowdy Friends…

It’s funny.  When you have a kid you are so excited for them to hurry up and do things for the first time.  There is the first time they roll over, first time crawling, first words and of course the first steps.  I remember how happy I was that day, but what I didn’t know then was:  that was the last time my wife and I would enjoy a meal together in a restaurant.  One of us is always entertaining our child, chasing our child, or otherwise wrestling with her. That is unless she is asleep or at home. 
 
To have a baby sitter is a great thing.  Especially one you don’t feel guilty about how late you are gone.  Where do you find one like that?  Well Family of course.
 
This past weekend my parents came up to help us build Fort Ainsley, and we took advantage of them by going out on Friday night.  It was great, since they were staying at our house, we did not need to be home by a certain time and best of all, it was free.  So we were defiantly in the mood to have fun.
 
Off we go to meet some of our college friends, who we have not seen in a long time because; well they are single and don’t have kids and basically have a life as opposed to us.  When we arrive the first thing we see is a Thermos grill/cooler   that Samuel Addams is giving away as a promotion. 
 
So we seek out the beer girl and ask her the deal, she said, “with every Sam Addams you drink you get to keep the glass, get a cozy and a raffle ticket for the grill.” 
 
Well to a couple of suburbanites who don’t get out much and could use a device like this for tailgating…this is a challenge.  I mean you might as well wave a red flag at a bull.  Even my wife, who is not a fan of Sam Addams, can smell competition.  We start ordering beers like we are using them to put out a fire.  We down two before our friends even arrive (we were a little early because we were so excited to get out).  Then when our friends Mason and Alexandra do get there, we quickly dispense with the pleasantries and immediately fill them in.  They’re in…Another round of Sammies please.
 
By the time we get a table, the free glasses and cozies are starting to pile up.  By the time we order our food we need an extra chair to hold all the freebies.  Well by now we have made great friends with the beer girl who is dispensing the raffle tickets and she has a proposition.  She is running out of cozies, can she trade us raffle tickets for them.  Well this plays right into our hands.  I mean I have a whole cabinet full of cozies (I know, I have a problem, but that is a topic for another time), all I need is one or two as a keepsake (as I said, I have a problem) and more raffle tickets.  We need to win.  We start to calculate how many rounds we can get in before the drawing.  Drinking Sam Addams has turned into a competition sport.
 
As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, we did not win the cooler/grill.  We were one number off and the guy who won it had not even had a Sam Addams – he got the winning ticket from someone who was leaving.  So while we were a little bitter, we were also drunk and we didn’t let a little thing like losing get in our way of a good time.
 Off we go to our favorite watering hole where Alexandra was as well known as Norm was at ‘Cheers.’  I mean they practically yelled her name when we walked in. 
Bartender:  “Pour you a Cosmo, Alex?”
Alex : “Alright, but stop me at one.....make it one-thirty.”

Sheryl and I were a little jealous; I mean that used to be us.  But we did feel better when we saw our friend Glenn, the executive chef…knowing people who have access to free beer trumps knowing patrons.
 
So although we may have been the losers of the grill/cooler, we had a great night out.  Not to mention we had a huge set of Sam Addams glasses to remember the evening by; well that the hangover and Sammie gas…