As I stared out of the window watching the familiar Queen City streets buzz by on my LYNX ride at 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning, I started to get nauseous. I get car sick fairly often, especially when I’m reading, but Monday morning’s nausea wasn’t caused by the blur of the city. Instead, the sick feeling I was experiencing was a direct result of too much “funday” on Sunday.
If you’ve had a chance to read any of my articles before, you’ve probably noticed I have a love-hate relationship with drinking on Sundays. On one hand, Sunday Funday keeps me from having to accept the fact that the weekend is over and I have to return to work the following day. On the other hand, if I don’t pace myself or stop the fun early, I’m usually hurting well into Tuesday.
Nevertheless, I knew this past weekend was going to be a challenge to avoid. Why? The regular NFL football season kicked off, of course! So I threw on some clothes and prepared for brunch at Draught in Third Ward. Three, if not four, bottles of champagne later, my friends and I thought it would be a good idea to take the party to Slate Billiards.
Remembering that’s where I had my last drink, I closed my eyes tight as the light rail passed Slate, Oak Room, All American Pub and Hot Taco. ‘I’ve never even had Hot Taco,’ I whispered to myself as we careened past the popular South End spot and I regained my composure. While I’ve taken my fair share of selfies with the “man in the sombrero” outside of the new-ish taco spot, I’ve never had the desire to stop in for a meal.
After arriving at the EpiCentre, derailing and heading to my nine-to-five job, I laughed thinking about the drunk conversations I’d overheard the day before. Over a year ago, I’d written an article entitled, “Drunk Gab: What I overheard one night in the next stall.” It was the first of what I’d hoped would be many installments all about the ramblings of drunkards as I explore venues, restaurants and libations in Charlotte. Needless to say, I’m well overdue for a follow-up.
Below are a few more drunk gab gems, organized by topic of conversation, that I collected this past Sunday:
Men’s attire: Despite popular opinion, women are not the only people spending an extended amount of time trying to figure out what they’re going to wear. “I couldn’t decide which Panthers shirt to wear. I mean, I knew we weren’t actually playing today, but I still wanted to wear something with ‘Panthers’ on it,” said some man. I looked up from my plate of pimento cheese bites in awe that two guys, seemingly uninterested in clothing conversations, were genuinely concerned about how to best represent their home team when that team wasn’t playing.
Potential hook-ups: Speaking of attire, while basking in the sun on the patio at Slate, I laughed with a complete stranger about a young man wearing a Buffalo Bills helmet. He’d just announced, “I’m really not a Bills fan, I’m a Panthers fan. But [since the Bills were playing the Ravens] I figured it’d get me some pussy.” I’ll let you decipher that one. Apparently, a hook-up is more likely to happen if you trick a sports fan into thinking you’re also a fan of that person’s fave team.
Phone apps: I don’t care what anyone says, Pokémon GO is not the most annoying phone application anymore. If I had asked for a dollar every single time someone said, “Is your ESPN Fantasy Football App working?” I would’ve made at least $100, easy. While I was looking for a new Pokémon to add to my collection, everyone else was obsessed with not being able to check in on their fantasy football leagues — “fantasy” being the operative word.
Poop: To poop in public, or not to poop in public, that is the popular question. “I’ve got the liquor shits,” I heard someone say as they walked away from their friends toward the bathroom. I laughed, because we’ve all been there. Even I was tempted to “make myself at home” in the enclosed, private stalls at Slate that are hard to come by in most public restrooms. And clearly, I wasn’t the only one. I walked into the bathroom at one point and I thought I would pass out from a pungent odor that filled the air — I guess the correct answer was “to poop in public.”
What’s the most hilarious drunk conversation you’ve overheard on your Queen City adventures?
This article appears in Sep 14-21, 2016.
