BAR HAVOC: 19 AGAIN

“I remember what it was like to be 19,” my friend Tim jokes, furtively glancing at the 8 shot glasses full of jagermeister and stoli orangand 4 cups half full of redbull. To our horror, the smirking bartender balances the two shot glasses against one another and wedges them into the top of the plastic cup of Red Bull.“It’s called a hand grenade,” he says. “You pull the first shot of Jaeger like the pin, shoot it, and in the meantime the shot of Stoli o falls into the Red Bull, then you chug it. It’s like getting bitched-slapped by the Jaeger and finishing off with a nice orange tic-tac.”

Oh god. I’m in trouble.

I am happily perched on a barstool at George’s of Galilee back home in Rhode Island, a bar I waitressed at for a few years before making the move to Boston six years ago. George’s is right on the waterfront, the parking lot filled with sand that turns into the beach, perfect for twilight games of volleyball and nighttime dips in the ocean. George’s is usually a tourist hot spot avoided by the locals, but every Monday night over the summer George’s is the place to be. Some of my greatest memories from every summer in and after college were in this bar, and even though it’s been a few years since I frequented the Monday summer scene, I am so happy to be back.

I am also acutely aware that I seem to be the only female who wears a bra anymore.

This place is a nipple bonanza.

Just over 21-ers and Jersey Shore look alikes run rampant, and I worry that I look absurd in my knee length black sun dress. I escape to the bathroom, passing a girl in a just -past- her- ass- cheeks skin tight neon yellow scrap of fabric,

her white thong threatening to choke me as I squish by.

“Thank god I’m not driving again tonight, oh my God, can you even imagine?!” she squeals.

The dance floor fills the second the DJ starts to spin. DJ Action Jackson is on point as usual; his Monday night resident spot at George’s is a nice change from Boston’s Thirsty University Thursday at The Draft and his weekend slot at Biddy Early’s. There is just something beautiful about downing a mind eraser with the smell of low tide in your nostrils, a sea breeze tussling your hair and house beats blowing out your eardrums.

A few vodka and grapefruit juices later my crew and I move on, the bars back home close at 1am so I am curled up and sleeping by 2am, a damned miracle. The next morning I wake up to my friend Steve moaning as he crawls into my bed in the guest room at his house. He clutches his stomach and shamefully groans,

“I woke up with vomit on my pillow… my sheets and pillows are in the washing machine.”

I roll over laughing so hard I feel tears stinging my eyes. I give him a reassuring pat on the back and manage to choke out, “Good work: I remember what it was like to be 19.”