Thursday, March 16, 2006

Amateur night

Tomorrow, 17 March, is St. Patrick's Day.
I fully expect to be stopped in at least one -- and maybe more -- sobriety checkpoints on my way home from work tomorrow night.
Why?
St. Patrick's Day is always a highly-ranked amateur night. When it comes on a Friday, it approaches New Year's Eve as the top amateur night of the year.
What, you ask, is amateur night?
It's when all the infrequent and kinda-sorta-but-not-really-frequent imbibers invade their local taprooms to ingest copious quantities of adult beverages. It's sort of an orgy without the sex (although that may come later, depending upon one's ability to perform while stone drunk).
"That's the night ya stay away from the bars," said Al K. Hall, our local connoisseur of all things related to adult beverages, referring to amateur night. "Ya can't even enjoy a few dozen drinks in peace."
Of course, when you have infrequent imbibers out in droves, the MADDness of sobriety checkpoints come into play.
"It's gonna be fun... not," said a police friend of mine who expects he'll be on checkpoint duty tomorrow night. "I've done a few of these things and I swear I come home about half-knocked from the fumes from some of these jokers."
So, friends, beware of the amateurs. And let's be careful out there, eh?