Bull

So that wasn't the best trip to Boston that ever happened. But this is not the forum for talking about problems (that's livejournal). This is the forum for recounting hilarity and voicing pointless opinions. And in the past week there have certainly been opportunities for hilarity and opinions. Good thing.

The most notable ridiculous thing was going out for Erica's 21st birthday to a club in Boston. A bunch of people (Erica, Chris, Scott, Karishma, Dana, Dave, etc.) took the shuttle into Boston from Waltham. By the time we got off the shuttle everyone had to pee pretty badly. The boys were complaining a little louder than the girls about it, and the girls (mostly Erica) told us not to cry so much. You try having a prostate! I considered peeing in an ally and did not do so; in retrospect that was a poor decision. We walked from the shuttle stop to the T, took the T (everyone except Scott and I almost didn't make it off the T for lack of paying attention), and walked to the club. By this time there was no more being called a wussy for having to pee really badly. Everyone had to. We ran/wadled into Dunkin Donuts. They always have bathrooms! False. Employees only. Across the street, Starbucks has bathrooms! Employees only. Well that did it. We got to the club slightly before I exploded with urine. A couple of people didn't make it past the bouncer (for bad, yet legal reasons). I couldn't wait to see how the situation would resolve itself. I ran to the bathroom. (I'm sure you want to hear this) I would say it was one of the most rewarded pees of my life, but it wasn't. I think I had been holding it in for so long that it went past the point of being rewarding and reaching the stage where it was actually difficult. Gross. The worst part of the bathroom was by far the fact that this club employed a guy to hand out paper towels. So this guy's job is to stand there, watch me pee, offer me a paper towel (because it's usually really hard to get those for yourself), and hope for a tip. A tip for paper towel guy after I paid a cover at the door? I don't think so.

Now I don't like clubs very much in general. Anyplace where the music is too loud to have a conversation with someone, the drinks are expensive yet served in plastic cups, and the DJ combines Rihanna and AC/DC and everyone loves it is not particularly for me. Clubs just kinda scream date rape. But getting beyond my regular skepticism, the best part of this club was easily the mechanical bull. A vehicle for attention and embarassment. It was pretty clearly meant for girls; every guy who went on lasted about 4 seconds while girls lasted closer to 4 minutes. One girl had the right idea, she wore under armor shorts. Another girl had the wrong idea, she refused to let go of the bull even after her dress simultaneously rode up and came down. She actually asked the guy running the bull to stop it for a second so she could fix her dress, apparently thinking that the exact same thing wouldn't happen when the bull started up again. She was wrong. Mercifully she fell off. Not to be deterred she was dancing on one of the polls soon after (a classic case of high self-esteem).

I ended up re-living the glory days, in the way that I was up until 4 am that night/morning. I didn't know I still had that in me. At least I, unlike some other people, didn't wake up and start drinking again. Of course I did wake up pretty early comparitively and go with Chris to Dunkin Donuts and to reclaim Dana's car. I got to drive her car back to Erica's house. It was a BMW. No big deal. Easily the nicest car I have driven. It had all these newfangled features like 'power windows' and 'automatic locks.' What is all that mumbo jumbo? My car never had that. Half way through the drive in the BMW I got cut off by some guy pulling out of a parking space who immediately pulled into a different parking space 3 cars down. Right after that some guy turning left tried to cut me off. That's when I remembered I was driving a good car and am from Boston. I stepped on the gas and cut him off in his attempt to cut me off. Take that, jerkface. In retrospect it wasn't that exciting or novel a move. It was also a little reckless given that I was driving someone else's Beamer. But it's the one move that I pulled while driving a sweet car, so I felt pretty good about it. Big man on campus. Look out.

Shaked and I went to the craziest book store in Brighton. There is some ambiguity in how that sentence can be interpreted, so let me clear it up. The first interpretation of is that I went to the craziest book store in all of Brighten, or Brighton's craziest book store. The second is that I went to the craziest book store and it happened to be in Brighton. Both interpretations are valid, and I mean both. Why point out the ambiguity then, you may ask. Good question. This book store literally looks like someone's attic. It's cramped and full of used books and records. And there is absolutely no discernable order to how they are shelved. We found two copies of the same Hemingway book in completely separate places. Every book's spine seems to be breaking. If there aren't significant creases in the book it's not allowed in the shop. It was a lot of fun poking around to see if there were any golden finds in the stacks of useless aged books. I almost bought a copy of Voltaire, but changed my mind. Sometime when I have more time I'm going back there.