St. Paddy's

Wednesday nights are trivia nights, and occasionally - or maybe a little more than occasionallly - followed by Ladies Night. Ladies Night is the night when ladies drink for free at a local bar.

Ladies Night fell on a St. Patrick's Day this year. Double Trouble.

Not only were there ladies getting drunk as hell, but the drink specials convinced the fellas to do the same. Normally, this isn't a problem, but there must have been a full moon or something that night.

The music was the same. Lame. We usually sit through the music for the free drinks, but 2 gin and tonics and a couple of 12 oz beers later, I knew I was gonna get on the dance floor, even if I also knew I wasn't going to have any real dancing fun.

My thing is dancing. Oh, I dabble in televison (and I know a lot about television) and I knit and spin yarn, and I love to write, but give me a good dj, some music made for dancing, and my feet will hit the floor and I won't sit down. I start dancing as soon as the music is up and won't sit down until it's over. I don't need alcohol to dance, like some people do, but it never hurts to have it.

The time on the dance floor started out like any other with this particular DJ. Dance for 2 minutes, stand on the dance floor holding my drink for the last 3 minutes of a song he'd decided not to change. During the second song, however, I was joined by a friend. By friend, I mean some drunk frat guy, a little taller than me with about 50 lbs. on me, who decided that instead of dancing, he would simply back into me. Putting my hand in the middle of his back, I gently, but firmly, pushed him away from me. He didn't acknowledge me nor did he do that thing that most people do when they bump into someone on the dance floor. Apologize. Even though it's unnecessary, it's a common courtesy thing that is welcomed. Rudeness aside (and he was pretty drunk), I kept dancing. The next thing I know, that same dude is backing into me again. I push him away again and this time I give him a dirty look. His friends get him off the floor.

Cut to about 20 minutes later. Little Sister is swing dancing with a guy we know when our friend from earlier decides he needs the dance floor, and he needs the space where Little Sister is. She pushes him away, but this time, he turns around and tries to start something with the guy. Little Sister steps in front of the guy to confront our friend. Usually, that makes a guy back down. Who yells at girls?

Drunk ass frat boys, that's who.

Of course, with this idiot yelling at my sister, I drew myself up to my full 5ft11in height, moved Little Sister out of the way and politely screamed that if he loved life, he'd better not get in my sister's face again. He then proceeded to tell me he was a man and that I couldn't talk to him that way. I told him that as long as he kept yelling at my sister, I was gonna talk to him however the fuck I pleased. We continued our repartee nose to nose for nearly two minutes before his friends pulled him away while I stared him down. He resisted, hoping to fight me I assume, and to be honest, I wanted to punch him myself, but I did the responsible thing. I watched him until he was pulled away then searched for the owners. They were nowhere to be found. So, on a cocktail napkin, I wrote, "There is a guy, blue shirt, khaki trousers, who is drunk as hell and bumping into girls on the dance floor. I just thought you'd want to know just in case I need to kick his ass." I passed the note when I got my drink and two seconds after I got on the dance floor, the bartender I'd passed it to was there to make sure that asshole didn't mess with another girl.

I avoided the guy, but Little Sister said that our friend kept staring at us for a bit. She said it looked like he considered coming back to start something, and while he started towards us a couple of times, he always thought better of it.

Both my maiden name and my married name is Irish. It's always been a joke that I'm more Irish than my husband, who has the most Irish name I know. A "black" Irish joke is usually imminent. Wednesday night, I almost got into a drunken brawl, and it's the most stereotypically Irish I've felt since the last time I wore my Kiss Me, I'm Irish t-shirt. Which was a long time ago.