Stay Young and Wild Forever.

Ok, before I write this I have to fess up to something. Never before have I ever gone into an evening's activity thinking, "Alright, this will be something I can blog about later." That is, I haven't done that until today. In my defense though, I have to let everyone know that today was the last day of finals and, thereby, the last day of the semester and the last day of the school year. So I feel like I'm owed a little slack in the "pre-supposed" blog post planning, because we did, in fact, have a ridiculous day/afternoon/night. I have to commit this now because I have no idea how much I'll remember tomorrow.

Alright, here's what happened. This morning I had my last final at 8 am. I showed up, took the test, turned it in. I don't know if I did good or bad, all I know is I took the test and it was done. The year was over. Good times would ensue. I went back to the house and talked to my lovely girlfriend while enjoying few whiskey and orange juices (or as I like to call them "whimosas") before I had to make a quick trip down to my place of work to sign a few papers. It was, at this point, around 10 in the morning. Carrying on, I caught word that a few of my associates, namely Beechnut and Incrediboy, were picking up a year-end celebratory keg. My ears perked up, and I was in. The keg was taken after with a considerable gusto. There were only five of us, but we proceeded, undaunted. Eventually the crowd grew to a good-sized group of the fellas and we enjoyed each other's company and the company of a barrel of easy-drinking monkeys. About halfway through the keg we were informed that a friend of ours--call him Moose--was in posession of half a keg that was left over from a party his girlfriend had thrown the night before. Our beer supply grew. We finished the first keg around 3 in the afternoon and turned our attention to the leftover halfie. I took a quick nap and woke up to be roundly ridiculed. It was around this time we learned of a party down the street. We wanted to attend, but it would be hard to tear ourselves away from the keg-shaped altar. Inexorable, we hefted the keg into a gold upholstered office chair and rolled it down the street like some kind of weird barley parade. Passerby marveled at our audacity and we earned many an appreciating nod and wave from the rough mustaches who inhabit our neck of the woods.

We got to the other party and turned our focus on the keg once more. Dominated. It is unreal what we did to that keg. Well, the party we were at had their own keg, so we turned our attention to it. Once again, we worked, slow and steady, and drained that one as well. In case you weren't counting, that is 2 and a half kegs that we had a hand in bringing down. It was about 9:30 pm at this point, and many of us were nearing the 12th hour of consecutive drinking. Turn your cameras on. Rrroo's antics were amazing as usual. We retreated back to one of our domiciles for a few quick games of Jager-pong (exactly what it sounds like) and decided to head downtown.

Downtown. We were already completely boozed out when we got downtown, but we headed towards eat the worm anyways. We slugged a few margs then hit the sidewalk for Mr. Toad, the best bar in Omaha. When we got there, Scott, the best bartender in Omaha, poured us 5 random well shots and we played a game of "shot roulette," the worst game imaginable, as I ended up with a shot of cheap sloe gin. We then decided to take a stroll to the pedestrian bridge that spans the Missouri River. Things got a little weird here.



Incrediboy, Beechnut, and I set out. We made a quick pit stop at 'The Slides,' where Incrediboy proved himself an amazing speedster on the sloped metal raceway. We then proceeded through a shady bridge area (hobo Hilton) before we wound our away around the Qwest Center to the bridge. Here we were met by Pistol P, KMart, and Beechnut and Incrediboy's respective lady friends, prepared to cross the bridge. The bridge (pictured above) connects Iowa and Nebraska. This evening was particularly breezy, but when we neared the mid-point--the state line--a huge gust of ice cold wind came up. Incrediboy and I hit the ground, screaming, "This is God telling us to stay out of Iowa!" Everyone else, numbed with cold and booze, turned back to their ride home at this point. Incrediboy and I, always the intrepid journeymen, soldiered on, accompanied by his girlfriend.

It's a good thing she came, too. For starters, her presence encouraged Incrediboy and I to act like a couple of tough guys rather than quake in our shoes. To clarify, once you get to the last third of the bridge there are almost no lights, leaving you in darkness with the eerie gray outline of riverside trees in front of you. Second, she was carrying Mace, which also put my mind slightly at ease. Even thought it was one in the morning, we encountered two people on the bridge. The first was a guy on a bike, who, at a distance, appeared to be gliding toward us. It may not sound like much in writing, but when you are piss pants drunk in the dark of the middle of the night and you think you see someone gliding towards you, it is the most terrifying moment of your life. I was a weird sound away from dead sprinting all the way home. The second person we saw was a guy with a long white beard (probably a drifter/bum type) walking towards Omaha. For a second we entertained a notion that the "glider" and "long beard" were the respective agents of evil and good, battling for the fate of our (semi)pure and innocent souls. Then we realized they were just a couple of weirdos on the bridge in the middle of the night. We descended further into darkness, bearing a determined heading to a rumored playground on the Iowa side of the river. However, when we reached Iowa, we saw that the playground had been bulldozed to build some cookie-cutter tract housing development. Totally lame. We made for Nebraska in a hustle, fearing the reappearance of the glider while still trying to act tough in front of Incrediboy's gal. It was freezing by this point.

We got a ride back to the neighborhood from Incrediboy's girlfriend to find an extremely drunk Rrroo watching TV in his room. We "tamed" him (wrestled him to the ground and pinned him to the floor) a few times, then cut him loose. I decided to walk home at this point, and, upon arrival, felt all my energy drain from my body. It was time to hit the hay, but not before I committed this tale to hardcopy.

What have we learned? Are our wayward, shitfaced adventures just hallmarks of our glorious low culture? Is this the paramount experience of our rowdy and riotous young manhood? I can't be sure but it's nights and days like this that, while some of our most glorious and agreeable, remind me that we only have so much time that we can get away with stuff like this. So, although I know it's impossible, I'd like to close with these words that I wish everyone could live by:

Stay young and wild forever.