Gather ’round, gather ’round, kiddies… it’s time for another one of Uncle Sean’s drunk stories… this is a tale about how to go out with a bang… or not to, depending on how you look at it…

After moving back to Michigan from Los Angeles, I was out of work but willing.  Your Aunt Becky worked at a night club in Royal Oak that I had frequented prior to leaving and during my return visits home.  They needed someone to run the pair of dance floor servant stations (and by run, I mean run back and forth and get ice and replenish other supplies).  I was their man.  This story isn’t so much about my first day (which happened to be an *NSync concert before they blew up… see SIDENOTE at bottom of post).  It’s about my last day working there (well, my first last day… I went back a couple more times to help or when I needed money).

I had announced to all it was my last day, and everyone was sad to see me go.  One of the order loaders arranged it so that I would get a bottled water filled with vodka so I could make drinks for myself through the night.  And partake of it, I did.

The funny thing about drinking while working in a night club is that people tip better when you’re on the same playing field as them.  I would help out the bartenders from time to time when I was slow and they were swamped.  This night was no exception.

A patron came up and ordered a shot called Red Wings.  “What’s that?” I asked.

“Cranberry juice and Jaeger,” she responded.  She ordered three shots.  I asked if one was for me, and she said to make it four.

Did I ever tell you Jaeger is my death nail?  Each of the liquors have a varying result in my actions, but they are consistent.  Jaeger is the anomaly.  Jaeger answers the next morning’s question – “Why did I do that?”

The woman came up shortly after that, and ordered another round.  Coupled with the screwdrivers I’d been downing, this is the last thing I recall.

Later, your Uncle Jay (who also worked there) and Becky would recount to me what followed.  As the night winds down, it’s my job to count out what items were left, to dump the ice trays, and do general cleaning.  I don’t know what time I disappeared, but Jay took care of my bars as well as his.

After the place closed up, my manager had a brainstorming session with Jay and Becky that went something like this:

“Perhaps he got in a fight, and the bouncers didn’t recognize him, and they threw him out?”

Jay and Becky shook their heads.

“Well maybe he met a girl and ditched this place with her?”

A pair of negatives again.  “That’s not the type of person he is,” Becky explained.

Jay piped in, “Check all the toilets.  He’s hugging one of them.”

Surely I was.  Upstairs, in the employee stalls.  Becky knocked on my door.  I remember that her voice sounded like an angel.

I pulled myself together and made my back to the main floor.  It turned out there was a concert the next day, and we had to set up all the chairs.  That was my penance.  If only that was the type of person I was…

MORAL OF THE STORY: Red Wings Team = good.  Red Wings Shots = bad.  Unless by “Shots” you mean “Scoring Attempts” then = good, again.

(SIDENOTE: Justin Timberlake and crew came out dressed in spaced suits to the Imperial Death Marchfrom “Star Wars.”  Their costumes made them look like the guys in colored hazmat suits in those old Intel commercials.  Girls had to be pulled out of the crowd from passing out.  Insane!  Who passes out at a night club anyway… never mind.)