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Closing the Bar Down

I don't get home past 3AM very often. Even if I'm out drinking or what not, bars & clubs close at 2AM, so I'm usually in before that time. The few times that I have gotten home that late, though, it's been completely unintentional. I don't think I've ever once tried to be out that late. Well, this last time was no different. I was going to hang out for a bit, and then meet up with a friend afterward. Somehow, that turned into me getting home at 4 in the morning, with plenty of mildly amusing stories to tell (and blog about).

I started off this latest escapade by watching some live mixed martial arts (MMA) fights at a club. Yes, you read that correctly. There's some company out there that organizes MMA bouts in actual night clubs (for those of you who know anything about MMA, they're associated with StrikeForce somehow). If you think about it, it's not a bad idea. The MMA demographic usually consists of 20-something year old guys, the kind who tend to frequent bars & clubs. You can almost think of it as the guy version of "ladies night" at the club. Besides, having it in a club gives the promoters an excuse for having go go girls, ring girls (with those oh-so-helpful signs telling you what round is about to start), and girls congratulating the winners of the fights. Like I was saying, they cater to the guys-in-their-20's demographic.

Girls notwithstanding, I was actually there to cheer on a couple of the fighters. It's been a while since I've fought, but I still talk to the guys I used to train with. The guy who owns the gym had a couple of fighters in this event, and it happened to be in my home town, so I decided to check it out. I have to admit, it was fun watching live MMA fights. These guys and girls were amateurs, so some of them weren't very good. Also, strikes to the head weren't allowed. Even worse, the two people I was rooting for didn't do so well (one lost via armbar, and the other's fight was ruled a no-contest because of a stray kick to the face while the fighter was down). Despite this fact, I saw plenty of entertaining fights, and I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent watching the fights.

My friend didn't want to attend, so I was planning on meeting up with her afterward. She actually said that if I was fighting, she'd want to attend, to root for the other person. Who needs enemies, eh? Regardless, we didn't meet up until after the fights. They had started late because of technical difficulties, so they also ended late. By the time I called her, it was past midnight. That also limited our options a tad, since most non-bar/club establishments usually close by then. I was actually hoping to grab something like pub food, since I hadn't had time to have dinner before heading out to the club. So, we basically figured we'd grab drinks somewhere. The catch, of course, was that the only place in the immediate vicinity was the bar where her ex happened to work. I personally didn't care, but I did ask to make sure this plan wasn't going to lead to awkwardness. My friend assured me it would be fine, so we headed out.

Go ahead, guess how the rest of the night went down. I'll even give you a little bit of time to form tangible/concrete guesses about how long we stayed. Well, all of you who think this went horribly, horribly wrong happen to be incorrect in this case. We actually stayed past their usual closing time, because the wait stuff knew us (and by "us," I mean "my friend"). In essence, we closed the bar down. I don't think I've ever done that before, and it felt a little weird. Still, the staff didn't seem to mind that we were hanging out, and a few of them even spent some time hanging out with us after they officially closed.

However, spending all that time in the bar let me witness, and be party to, all sorts of verbal banter between the two ex'es (how the heck do you spell that word correctly?). In fact, at one point, I was promised free drinks for the entire night if I provided embarrassing stories. Sadly, I ended up paying for my drinks. Still, the jokes did add a little bit of entertainment to the night. It definitely made for more laughter in the world, with a good chunk of that laughter coming from me. Also, the kitchen was closed, so I essentially had a liquid dinner (another first for me). That meant that I had a decent buzz going, and things were slightly funnier than they might have otherwise been.

By the time we rolled out of that place, it was something like 3 in the morning. We actually walked out the back door from the bar, because they'd already locked up the front door (that would be first #3 on this night). I walked my friend home, and then waited around for a bus to catch home.

The night buses can take forever, so my plan was to catch a cab if the bus didn't show up within 20 minutes. Luckily, it didn't take that long, and I saved the extra cash. I paid, and I quickly realized that I was the only person on the bus. Don't think that's happened to me anytime before, either. If I hadn't been tired, I probably would've felt odd about being the only passenger. As it was, I just wanted to hit the sack. The one nice thing about the night buses is that they fly compared to the day-time versions. There's very little traffic at that hour, and the drivers want to get to their destination as quickly as the passengers do. So, they almost all get you to your stop quickly.

Even so, I didn't walk in the door until roughly 4AM. I changed & washed up quickly, and jumped into bed. It had been a long night, but I wasn't complaining. Of course, I was supposed to help out at a volunteer event the next day, so that would cause amusement of another sort.

So, as with most of my posts, the moral(s) of the story:
1. If you have friends that will root against you, don't invite them to watch you fight
2. Plan ahead if you're going out, so you don't accidentally have a liquid dinner
3. Banter between a broken-up couple can be profitable if you work it the right way
4. The MUNI drivers at night are cooler than the MUNI drivers in the day
5. Late nights make for successful work functions the next day (read the linked post in the last paragraph if you're confused)

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