Suck My Bowtie

Yesterday was St Patrick's day. It was also the day I got at up 6AM to go into work on a Saturday. I got out around 3 in the afternoon, somewhat miserable. My old friend J decided that, since it was St Patrick's Day and a Saturday, there was nothing for it other than to drive into Toronto from very far away.

As an aside, around Christmas I decided I would bring back the bowtie as a cool fashion accessory. You can't even imagine how hard it was to come by a bowtie. I went to Stollery's where the bowtie I wanted was in the window, but there wasn't one to be had in the entire store. My salesman was about 80 years old and rather rotund. I asked if there was any way he could get the one out of the window. Not a chance. So I left, no bowtie, and headed for Harry Rosen. Nothing. Holt Renfrew. Nada. In desperation I even tried H & M. It appears they may
also be trying to bring back the bowtie, but their selection was rather garish. Frightening, even.

So, I'd now tried everywhere for a green bowtie. I even had my girlfriend at the time call the Harry Rosen in the Eaton's Centre with no luck. So I head back to Stollery's to beg. Fortunately I got the spry, young salesman the second time. He was about 70 and skinny in that way that only old people can be skinny. He hopped through the window display and got me my lovely green bowtie with tiny black dots. Combined with my red sweater vest, it was a big hit at the Christmas party. Or, at least, it got a lot of attention.

So the bonus to the green bowtie is that I can also wear it on St Patrick's Day! Which I did.

J arrived around 9PM and we walked down to A's house to meet up with her and her friends. As we walked to A's, we drank our first St Paddy's Day beers. My logic was, any cop who would arrest someone for drinking in public on St Patrick's Day is a jerk.

A's friend drove us up to the bar. We got there around 10:30 and in the end there were about 9 of us. J and I whiskey and Guiness mostly. My bowtie got next to no attention outside the people I had come with. I found one girl who had a green bow in her hair. I said, "hey, we match!" and she was very impressed, but it turned out she was having trouble standing up. I took a picture of her hair bow and my bowtie and showed it to her on my digital camera. "How did you take that so fast?" she wondered. Oh yeah. She was in good shape.

I wasn't the only one who had my digital camera out. The whole group was trying to get all sorts of fun shots. In one where I thought two of us were trying to kiss A at once, it turned out that the other person had given up and I was the only one kissing her on the cheek. A had also gotten bored and started grabbing the other person's boob. There are almost an infinite number of photos of me kissing someone while they feel someone else up. There were some shots of L and I with our fists in our mouths. An action shot of me being punched in the mouth. One where I'm upside down, even. We left the bar shortly before 2 and cabbed it home.

As exhausted as I am today, I'm glad J came and I got to go out and have some fun on St Patrick's Day. I have learned my lesson about planning major work events on drinking holidays.

I think next year if they ask me to release on St Patrick's Day I will look them square in the eye and tell them to suck my bowtie.