Wild at Heart

If I'm anything, I'm a terrific carouser; yet I find my proclivity for carousing hindered by my present location, Canada in this case. Everything is so far, public transportation sucks and is expensive, there is no 대리 운전 (call-to-order chauffeurs), and bars close at the early hour of 2 AM. Going out for a night on the town here is, logistically, a pain in the fucking ass.

That didn't stop me, however, from venturing into Toronto last night for beers and reminisces with a good friend. My mom dropped me off. I'm thirty-two. How embarrassing.

The evening started off superbly: patio beers, acquaintances well met, televisions in restrooms. Goat-sperm fajitas. Free shots of Jägermeister.

The evening got bad: After leaving 이차 to drop our backpacks off in your favorite blogger's favorite blogger's best Canadian friend's car, we returned to discover that some fiends had smashed his driver-side rear window and stolen his and my backpacks. I'm never going to Torontno again.

The evening got better: lesbian waitress, FISH BURRITOS, homemade hot sauce, free pug hugs*, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, FISH BURRITOS, FISH BURRITOS, FISH BURRITOS!

The morning got slept through: ZZZ.

The afternoon got through: or, rather, I got through the afternoon. To quote Egg Shen, it wasn't easy. My mom picked me up to take me home (such a shameful thing for me, a man in his thirties, to admit), and during the one-and-a-half hour commute back to Mere-et-Pere Sparkles my bowels were cramping as frequently as Roger Ebert tweets. The levee, so to speak, was poised to break. Blessedly, I persevered; for, like the Montreal Canadiens and the Phoenix Suns, I really can't play well away from home. But boy when I play at home can I ever play.

The lavatory got occupied: reverse-meta description here. Oh, there was a reckoning. This man was felled. Like a hoary oak.

The belly got hungry again: so I had a Mott's Caesar and some plankton. Then I went to The Beer Store for a case of Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale. I bet Keith wasn't even from Indiana.

The boy got carded: In case you haven't read my autobiography, The Portrait of Dorian Gay, I'm basically an old man in a young boy's body, like Gary Oldman (star of Diff'rent Strokes) or that kid from Hannah Montana, the one who plays Andrew Jackson. The truth is, ladies, I'm thirty-two. That's twenty-five plus seven, thirty-seven minus five. Still, I was stunned -- and more than a little flattered -- when, at The Beer Store**, the clerk-lady asked to see my ID.

"I'm thirty-two," I said, masking a smile. "I don't have any Canadian identification because I've lived in Korea for ten years. I'm just here on vacation."

("But if you need proof that I'm a man I can prove it less paper, more carnal, Cougar Beer-Store Lady.")

I pulled out my Korean residence card as proof and handed it to her. She looked over it, front and back, with a confused grimace the size of Ronald McDonald's fat purple friend.

Five cents was my change.


* Legs and I sometimes talk about what replacement pet we're going to buy to fill the lonely hole of our frigid coupling after Jikko, our Shi Tzu, dies, and now I have the answer: a pug. I want a pug like Violet Beauregarde wanted Wonka's three-course-dinner gum, damn the consequences! I will have my pug.

** Canada has The Beer Store. You might have missiles that can kill nukes from space, venomous reptiles of all kinds, pandas, citrus fruit, cave pictures, the alphabet, phones...but you will never have The Beer Store.