Last night was a 9 out of 10. The only way I would give out a 10 is if I wind up in bed with a Harvard educated bombshell who likes me and wants to be my wife. A 9 is high. The night took me from drinks with friends, to drinks with more friends, to drinks with a stripper, to drinks with more friends. It was costly in terms of dollars but extremely worth it in life experience.

It was Jeff’s birthday and my night started off with a grouper which is when Grouper sets up 3 guys with 3 girls at a bar. It was the first time I’ve ever done one and was pleasantly surprised. Adam and Evan were the other 2 of the male side and we met up with 3 girls from Philly at a bar called the Corner. We arrived first and there were two small, circular tables with 3 low round cushion chairs and a 3 person booth. We weren’t sure how to sit and the picture below will show the scenario.

Sitting 1,2,3 would have been the most practical but least inviting. The 2,4,6 combo wouldn’t have been bad but if I were a girl I’d think that I was prey and the guys were hunters. We ended up selecting 1,2,4 which worked out pretty well. The girls arrived about 5 minutes after we did and were punctual which is always a plus. The conversation to start was greetings and college, work, location which I’m sure is all standard. We ordered some drinks, Grouper picks up the first one (it costs 22 bucks for them to set it up), and the waiter carried ours out with Sly Fox cans turned downwards in pint glasses. I immediately thought it was unusual when I saw it and sure enough it proved disastrous. As the waiter delivers one of the girls her sparkling wine, he tips the tray and the 2 remaining drinks fly everywhere. AMAZINGLY I was prepared for what happened and jumped up at the perfect time not to take any liquid in the face. No jokes please. The drinks help lighten the mood which was helpful because conversation can hit its lulls. I learned, one of the girls puts a Fireball (the candy) in water and drinks it. Her phone also takes pictures in shapes due to it being from 1999. All in all though it flowed pretty well and after 2 hours everyone was hungry and looking to get food. At this point I could go into each detail of the conversations which would be good for the blog but wrong towards the people involved.

The 6 of us went to El Vez for dinner and had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. We were seated at a half circle table and ordered some margaritas and Victory’s Mad Elf. We were all pretty loose and the conversation was solid. An interesting thought popped up to have a grouper with like minded people on a specific subject. Meaning if there was a “running” grouper, they’d set you up with 5 other friends who were into the subject. Grouper should probably look into this. Our waiter played for the other team and the joke of the night went to one of the girls who commented on what his girlfriend looked like (a dude) or something like that. At 10:30 or so dinner concluded and we parted ways. It was odd at the end of the night because I was getting a cab to where 2 of the girls were going and I asked if they wanted to share the cab. They couldn’t make up their mind for some reason which I think was because they thought I wanted them to come back to my place which wasn’t the case. Instead I jumped in myself and was brought home by a man from Algeria who didn’t speak the best English but I was grilling on what he wanted to become. A musician.

When I got home there was a crew gathered for Jeff’s birthday. I”m told people love shout outs in the blog so I’m going to go over the entire crew. It was Jeff, Julia, Pat, Mike, Jill, Doyle, Dan, and his other friend whose name escapes me. Julia poured me a double if not triple shot of Evan Williams which I threw back and made me want to puke. I kept it together and we had a few beers before going out to Silk City. Silk City was dead as a doornail smalls and an employee wanted to charge 5 bucks per head. I was negotiating it down when Taylor used a great line, “this is it, 15 bucks for us all, take it or leave.” I circumvented the final offer and we settled on 20 bucks for 7 people which made both parties happy. The 3 dollar Lagers are a decent deal at Silk City but the beer was warm and there wasn’t much crowd. After 15 minutes a group of 3 including myself went down the street to Delilah’s.

It was a 15 dollar cover which I personally don’t find horrible. The action was pretty slow for a Friday night so the girls walking around were plentiful. I was approached by a gorgeous girl with an attitude looking for someone to dance with. I wanna dance with somebody and we began the negotiating process. She was looking for a 3 dance minimum for 50 bucks which in hindsight was actually a good deal and I should have taken it. I scoffed at her offer telling her I’d rather do one for 20 and she basically told me to fuck off in my cheapskate ways. About 2 seconds later a new girl was looking to get me in the private room and I obliged. She didn’t stripper dance for me and I was asking her questions like what do you make on a good night ($1,500+) and how long she’s been doing it (7 years) and if she’d rather do something else. The conversation was more intellectual than sexual which is maybe what happens when you’ve had numerous lap dances over your career. It was like I was trying to use a different method for scoring than a simple lap dance. I made it clear that I wasn’t into spending a lot of money and the champagne room was out of the question. After she got 60 bucks from me I was spent and she had this flashlight in a dark room that she would use to look into your wallet when you went to pay her. At one point I opened mine and a moth flew out and I think out of sheer embarrassment I decided to take out another $100 dollars of Delilah dollars which are actually $120 of real people dollars. I gave her the 100 bullshit dollars and had a few more dances that amounted to nothing. She was a professional at her job because after I was tapped out, she pulled a Richard Parker and didn’t look back and went on to the next schlep.

In astonishment, I met a few people who I knew at the strip club. This is the part where people love shout outs but I’m not sure they love these kind of shout outs so I’ll leave the names out. I left with them and we went back to my place. At some point some bros came back with cheese steaks from Del Rossi’s that looked delicious and Jared and I took a walk to pick up a few. When we got back I had a wonderful late night cheese steak which hit the spot. I asked Sam to bring over blankets if he was planning to sleep there and he brought exactly 0. He was in the city for the open bar that he won at McFadden’s and I was making attempts to meet up with him throughout the night. His best line when I asked him where he was and where he was going was, “I’m at 16th and Arch, don’t worry about it.” Needless to say the sleeping conditions weren’t optimal but they survived.

Jared, Alex, Sam, and myself woke up at about 9:30 and went to get the car from work. I’ll personally tell Alex through this blog that he’s fun to hang out with even if he doesn’t remember hanging out. They drove me back to my car which I picked up and drove home. My car battery is dying from this cold weather and my tire pressure needed a boost. I missed the trash collection as well which sucks because I’m overrun with trash. Other than that, life is splendid and I’m looking forward to a huge Birds W tonight.