In 1997 / 1998 I moved in to a house with four chef friends of mine, Corey (aka Putzy), Blain (aka Blainer or Mel), amd Trevor (aka Gunner Bob or Leonard) my best friend / mentor chef/ current chef. We had some epic adventures and laughs, but one particular event on December 23 of '98 comes to mind. This evening was a rare occurence where we all had the evening off (I was the unfortunate one that had to work Christmas Eve) so we decided to play a game of Uno.
As we hunkered down in the living room we decided to pour some of our stash of Crown Royal, our drink of choice and we each had a bottle or two saved for the holidays. now I don't know whos brilliant idea it was but we decided to put 2 decks of Uno together and play. I had never played before but quickly came to the conclusion that it is basically like Crazy Eights and the game was on.
What none of us knew is that one hand would last all night as someone always had an 8 or a 4 or a 2 and the game just got ridiculous but we didnt care. We had the Christmas music playing and Trevor bartending and the jokes and sarcasm flying, a great night of male bonding, Now we started this game around 5 or 6 in the evening, had ordered some "Death Disk" as Blainer liked to call it and the drinks were flowing.
Our drink of choice between all of us was Crown Royal and we could all handle our drinks pretty good and never paid attention to when around 10 or 11pm Trevor had said that we were running low on mix. We were all too wobbly to drive and get some coke / pepsi so we just carried on with the fun and merriment of the game. Around 1am Jackie, Trevor's girlfriend said she was going to bed and we kept playing, and drinking. When 5:30am came we decided to pack it in as I had to work at 8am, back then I could do that kind of self inflicted torture and not have it affect my work. 7am came around and jackie woke me up and we car pooled to work as she only worked a few blocks from where I did, that and I was in no shape to drive.
I get to work set up the line and knowing that we close at 3pm and that we are not open Christmas day and do not need to do any prep I decide to sit at the bar and have a quick nap. An hour goes by and Danuta (aka Dana, our Polish dishwasher / cleaner) wakes me up and says "Scott, you have to get ready for work."
I go upstairs to get changed and mid change I randomly lean over towards the toilet and empty the contents of my stomach. I had never had anything like that happen to me before after a night of drunken debauchery. I felt fine, a wee bit wobbly but fine, so I continued to get ready to open and started my shift. The day came and went, I got a bit hung over for a little bit until I snagged some lunch then continued on, I anxiously waited for the day to end though.
Around 2 pm the boys showed up to see how I was doing, drop off my vehicle and get a ride with Jackie back home. Blain and Putzy were rough but Trevor was down right hungover more so than all of us combined; "Ha, lightweight" I thought to myself.
After shooting the shit for a few mins Trev comes over and says "Do you know how much we drank last night?
" The 40 pounder?" I asked
"Nope, we drank between the 4 of us the 60 pounder (60 oz bottle) a 40 pounder (40 oz bottle) and two and a half 26ers of Crown.." he responds and I was aghast at the volume of booze but he continues to talk ".. with only 2 litres of mix!"
"What the F***????? I knew they were strong but i thought you found more mix!" I exclaimed.
"No man, I just gradually made them stronger and when we were out of mix i just kept adding to your glass before it was empty so it had some color in it from the previous drink." Trevor proclaimed before crawling over to some benches in the lounge area of the open concet restaurant and laid down for a nap / passout session.
Sure enough later that night when I got home there were empty bottles all over the kitchen and only a 2 litre of Pepsi to show for it. And being the guy I was back then I believed in hare of dog so I poured myself a rye that night to "cure" any hangover I might still have. I had one sip and i was done and Christmas day at home with my family was no better, it was a no drinking few days I had as the smell just turned me off in the next few days after that episode.
I have never played Uno since. Rye is still my friend but now it is a different brand, Forty Creek but Crown will always be my go to when out and about.
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