On the taxi ride from Tom’s Restaurant back to East Village, Steve passed out quickly, and not soon after, I followed suit.  Tim bid us farewell, and I remained awake for our ride back to Midtown.  The taxi that narrowly missed crashing into the backseat where I was sitting probably helped…

EPISODE VI
RETURN OF THE HANGOVER

Upon reaching our final destination without reaching the final destination, Steve decided he wanted some more food.  I think I agreed.  We remembered seeing a Taco Bell on our way to the pizzeria the day before, so we ambled forth in search of late night seasoned beef and cheese and tortillas and rice…

The next morning, after awakening in our dirty Snuggies, we tried recalling the run for the border.  We remembered that it was more like a regular deli that had a Taco Bell in the back.  The Taco Bell was closed, yet the front remained in business.  Weird.  Steve didn’t think he purchased any food, and I cannot confirm or deny that fact, but I do know he inquired about it.

Steve – “How much for pizza?”

Worker – “$3.50 a slice.”

Steve – “I’ll give you three for a half.”

The rest is fuzzy, and so was Steve.  He wasn’t feeling too hot on the morning of our ride home, whereas this time, I felt fine.  Upon learning of my faux pas regarding the hot dog joint/secret bar, we made the decision to seek it out properly before leaving.  We had to know if it truly did exist.

So on the way to the subway station at Times Square, we stopped at this place to get cupcakes:

While outside enjoying “da bomb frostins,” we bore witness to a scene straight out of Police Academy.  A short cop was surrounded by tall European women,  in their late teens to mid-twenties (with an elder or two over-seeing them), and he was posing for pictures with them. 

There were well over a dozen of them (a baker’s dozen?), and he had to make sure there was variety in his stylings.  When Steve and I walked into Magnolia, he was letting them put on his hat and hold his night stick.  When we were eating, he was fastening handcuffs on one of the girls.  I just imagined that if he was called for an emergency, he’d leave her behind locked up.

From there, we took the subway to Union Square, and met up with Tim and Mike again.  Tim was excited and had this to say:

I’ve finally made a union with someone at Union Square.

Anyhotdog, our final mission before leaving NYC was to locate this secret bar.  It was not far from our point of departure the night before, and here’s what we found:

Once inside, I stared at the counter of the narrow establishment seeking out the phone booth that would lead us to the bar called P.D.T. (Please Don’t Tell).  I turned left, and there it was:

I pushed open the door, and the guy behind the counter told me it didn’t open until six.  Bummer city.

We ordered some dogs.  I had mine made Seattle-style, in honor of this upcoming weekend’s trip.  (It’s cream cheese on a hot dog in a bun.)  From there, we made our way back to Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.  And from there back to Newark, and then back

toward 

home.

*sniff*