Going Out by Baden Allen

Hello.

I’m an easy going sort of fellow, by and large, But I’m afraid I couldn’t sit ideally by and watch the well constructed and mathematically baffling slander of Bars, Pubs and Ale Houses everywhere go unchecked on your fine site! (Hot Alicia's second piece.)

So I present:

Going out is the end all of a good time by Baden Allen

Now on the surface I’ll admit that the benefits of Staying In seem alluring, And every now and then I love a good Stay-Home-And-Get-Blotto-With-Mates, but to say staying home is better than going out is just plain silliness. OK, so your gonna spend more if you go out on the town, but I find that a good way to combat high-priced evenings out is to drink before, on the way to and/or in the carpark of your favourite pub, I find that its not difficult to polish off 3 or 4 beers on the way there, then if your feeling up to it, pocket another 1 or 2 and drink them in there! (NOTE: no matter how desperate you get DO NOT attempt to sneek in open beers, the physics of it doesn’t work). And I’ll admit then Finding/Being Soba Driver does suck nearly as much as finding out that your soba driver isn’t quite as soba as he’s supposed to be, but a bunch of you in a taxi-van makes for cheep transport.

But if you think about it, staying at home can be no walk in the park either! I mean you try to convince my friend Brett, who after ‘Drinks’at his place, had mud all through his carpet, and red wine all over the upper wall / ceiling of his living room, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label mysteriously emptied and replaced with 750ml of Dilmah Tea just for starters.

Sure it always starts off small a Glass gets broken, a Pool Ball or darts goes missing, but before you know it someone’s vomited on the TV, there’s a drawer-fill of cutlery in the blender, strangers are having sex on your parents bed, House pets are traumatised, your mail-box is on fire, the curtains have gone missing, someone’s carved “Shermanz da Man” on your dining table with an corkscrew, The wheels off your car are gone, then you finally find beds for all these rowdy savages, and what happens 1st thing in the morning when its clean-up time? *Poof* everyone up and disappears on you! I’ve Seen It Happen!

And another thing that’s worth thinking about, Say you start off with you and 6 mates, every weekend you go to someone’s house, hang out, have some drinks, watch some telly, its all good fun, you don’t need other friends, no point in going out and meeting New People, New People are boring, you already know and like these people! If it aint broke, why fix it right? Till all of a sudden Jeremy dosent come out with you’se any more, he’s got a girlfriend now, he doesn’t think she’ll like you guys, so your down to 6!, then Paul stops drinking and doesn’t find you interesting, that’s 5, Sally goes on her OE to Uzbekistan, Glenn joins a Cult and changes his name to ZZíôHOP, and your down to 3 mates, Pete goes off to Uni, and you quickly realise the other two, Dave and Jim, well you never liked them much in the 1st place, and your at home getting trashed on a Saturday night by yourself, then you figure, well this actually simplifies things somewhat, cause I don’t even need to go out any more, no more sleeping in the bathtub at Glenns place for you!, then you get to more thinking, Why just on Saturdays… why not Fridays too?, after all you’ve got Saturday off from work to recover, plenty of time to sleep it off now you’ve got rid of those pesky friends of yours, hey! Why not Thursday nights! No-one ever does work on Fridays anyways! Hmmm, if I stop drinking this high class crap and buy some of this “Bully Hays General Purpose Alcohol” for $2.50 a litre, I can save Even More Money! That way I only need to work 3 days a week and I can Drink on Sunday, and Monday too!!, then things really start going down hill, but I wont bore you with the details, suffice to say the phrase “I only really NEED 2 shirts, one to wear during the day, and one for when I watch re-runs of Bay Watch” aint far off.

So in conclusion, to prevent a filthy lonely barren desolate like of alcoholism and hand-jobs for crack, put some effort into your weekend, it’s a big wide wonderful world out there, get off the damn couch!

Your Fan

-Baden Allen