The Ted Show

Back in 2001 when I first checked on to the Reagan, I found that a lot of our abundant free time between watches and shipyard tests were filled with trading stories. My first attempt at spinning a yarn of my adventures was an utter failure, and after much (not so subtle) encouragement from my friends and coworkers, I strove to correct that deficiency. That wasn't really a problem, as the misadventures and shenanigans of the next three years provided a plethora of material to perfect my craft. Nowadays I'd like to think that my skills as a raconteur have greatly improved.

The adventures continued once we got here to San Diego, as is often retold here, but that came to an almost complete standstill when I started recruiting. Between settling down with the ex and working 80-90 hours a week, there wasn't much time or interest in getting into much trouble. After the breakup and subsequent move back out here to Pacific Beach, school and the need to finish healing emotionally kept any other adventures I took part in were still barely blips on the the radar of partying, especially  in relation to the old days. This was partially me not wanting to go out, but also because the landscape of my friends has changed so much in the last couple of years. Most of my old party buddies are now engaged, married, or now have or are expecting kids. Meanwhile, the majority of my classmates aren't exactly what I would call my peers. Don't get me wrong, I'm making friendships that I know I'll value years from now, but most of the folks I hang out with at school are either married and/ or parents, or are 20 years old and don't exactly have my same... experience level. Needless to say, I've been aching to find folks to hang out and party with for a few months now. Call it a side-effect of springtime burgeoning around me here, but I've been itching to try and get back into the single game.

I'd been interested in a girl in my Chemistry class, Roxy, for pretty much the entire semester, and to my surprise, she finally took notice and (at least academic) interest in me over the last month or so. We made plans last week to hang out this weekend. With that in mind, I started jumping back in to my old role of party organizer- calling up old friends to see who would be able to come out, and hoping that I'd have a decent-sized group with me in case Roxy didn't show up (she'd cancelled last minute the previous evening for Happy Hour at South Beach), or worse, brought along a boyfriend that I didn't know about, since previous experience has shown that any girl I'm interested in dating from school is already seeing somebody. I'd spent most of the day hanging out with bkmichele , who'd even gone so far as to blow off the date she was supposed to have last night in favor of hanging out with me, and we made plans to go to OB to try and run amok in a way we hadn't done in many years. 

As she was getting ready to head over, I started getting MANY drunken phone calls from Zeke, whom though married and expecting his first son to be born this coming week, was nonetheless free of God, Wife, and Navy for the weekend and obviously back up to no good. Our friend Ben (the gay/ bi version of me), whom I'd previously tried to help join the Navy last year, was also present, and an old friend of mine from the Reagan, Victoria, drove down from Pasadena to partake in the festivities.

And a good night was had by all. Sunshine Company was a lot quieter than previous times I'd been there back in the day, and we were quickly able to commandeer one of the pool tables, where Zeke kept us in stitches as he tried time and again to beat the guys who were running the table. It took him the better part of two hours, and probably close to ten dollars worth of quarters, but he finally succeeded in wresting the table from their grasp- then proceeded to drunkenly shoot the cue ball off the table half a dozen times, to the amusement of the folks at the table next to us.

Between making fun of the hoochies throwing themselves at guys at the table next to us, the man with the epic mullet that Michele and Vic posed for pictures with, the gorgeous black girl that walked up to Michele and basically gave her a lap dance, and me practicing my newfound ability to be attracted to and attempt to hit on only the girls that were with or meeting up with their boyfriends, it was definitely a night full of stories that will be retold later. With pictures to provide evidence of the goings-on.

The craziness didn't stop when we left the bar. A couple of Zeke's new buddies from the Vinson had come out to meet up with us, and lacking a ride, they had to wait for one of their girlfriends to come from Coronado to pick them up so we could head out for the obligatory 2am burrito. As we were waiting, a man walking his cat (yes, on a leash) got stopped and ticketed by a pair of police officers (one of them being a smoking hot petite blond) for having an open container, then stopping to pet the cat afterwards. Meanwhile, Ben and Michele snapped photos and immediately put them on Facebook and Twitter. The ride for our new friends finally arrived, and we made our way back to PB, ending up at Taco Motion for our post-drinking burrito fix. After everything that had happened, I'd thought that all of the hilarity was done for the night.

Nope.

As we were waiting to order our food, some incredibly drunk guy walked in to the taco shop, ready to start a fight with Ben, because Ben had apparently rolled his eyes at the guy.

Ben had been wearing sunglasses since we'd gotten back in Michele's car for the ride back to PB.

A friend of his finally came to collect the his friend obviously endowed with x-ray vision, and we ate our burritos in relative quiet (aside from making fun of how drink Zeke was) before everybody called it a night.

So a good time was had by all. I've been thinking all morning about how much I've missed partaking in crazy adventures like this, and I doubt this is going to be a regular occurrence again, but it's just proof that even as I'm aging, I still have some party left in me. And Roxy, the hot girl from my Chem class that had been the whole reason for throwing together our ragtag ensemble? Never showed, and I never heard a peep from her all night as to where she was or if she still wanted to hang out. Oh well- we can't win 'em all, I guess.