Don't drink when your team is in the playoffs.

A friend of mine isn't feeling too well today. Rumor has it that he had more than a few to drink yesterday. One of the four NFL teams playing yesterday was one that he's a big fan of, and that may have had something to do with it. Whether he's got the bottle flu, or if he's actually sick, it doesn't matter. But it did get me reminiscing of how I learned not to drink when one of your favorite teams in in the playoffs.

In 1998, the Chicago Cubs made it into a one-game wild card playoff with the Giants, for the right to play the Braves in the NLDS. I went to a sports bar in Greeley with some friends and my roommate (I don't remember the name of the place, but their chicken-fried chicken was to die for). I got destroyed and don't remember much of the game, but a New Belgium rep was there, asking people random trivia and if you got a question right, you got a free Fat Tire hat. My roommate pointed at my drunk ass and said, "Ask him a movie question!" and so he did .... "What color was the swimsuit that Phoebe Cates wore when she got out of the pool in Fast Times?" and even though I hadn't seen the film yet, every straight male raised in the 80's knows the answer:

Bang, free Fat Tire hat. Anyway, this story does have a point. We all went back to our house and drank more, and watched the live celebration footage on WGN. Then my friends left, and I thought my roommate had already went to bed, so I locked up and ceremoniously passed out. Then I woke up the next morning and saw that my roommate's SUV was gone, and I had four messages on my answering machine.

beep!

'Goddammit, you locked me out of the house. (knocking sound) HELLOOOO!!! I'm knocking on your bedroom window ... wake up asshole!'

beep!

'GODDAMMIT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, WAKE THE FUCK UP! IT'S FREEZING OUT HERE AND I'M IN MY BOXERS ON THE FRONT FUCKING PORCH!'

The messages continued to get worse. Turns out that he was about to go to bed, and his fiancee called, and they got into an argument, so he stepped out on the front porch to have some privacy. Our walls were pretty thin, as you can imagine with a college-area house. It was an honest mistake, locking him out. Could've happened regardless of how much booze I'd had. He also could've put on some pants before going outside at night in a t-shirt and boxers in the first week of October in north fucking Colorado, but I'd have woken up easily if I was a little more sober.

So apparently, I finally woke up, wrapped a towel around my boxers (I was embarrased to answer the door in just my boxers?), and opened the door and let him in. Apparently, he called me words most sailors have never heard before. Then he packed a bag and drove that night to talk with his fiancee ... she lived about four hours south of Greeley. Of course, I didn't remember letting him in, so I woke up, heard the voice messages, saw his car was gone, and I just assumed he was driving around somewhere in Greeley, in his boxers, trying to buy a gun somewhere so he could kill me. I finally got ahold of him early that afternoon, and he wasn't mad anymore. He and his fiancee were struggling with the long-distance relationship thing, so he took a few days off and went to be with her. They ended up getting married about a year later and I was a groomsman, but I'm getting off-topic again.

Oh, and let's not start with the time when the Broncos won their second Super Bowl, and I got so drunk off of Fat Tire that I tried to bring a pistol to the 'impromptu street celebration' that was happening a block away, and then drank tequila straight out of a bottle that some random frat boy handed me, then put on a ski mask and was jumping through a fire in the middle of an intersection, then pro-wrestled with a coworker in some stranger's lawn and lost my Bronco hat, then got tear-gassed by jackboot-wearing riot police, then went home, then was drunk enough to try to go back to the riot and got tear-gassed AGAIN.

So, the morale to the story. I've learned that you shouldn't drink if your team is in the playoffs. After the Broncos' second Super Bowl win, I've never had more than three beers, and that includes all the Avalanche playoff runs. I was stone sober when Ray Borque raised the cup, and I'm glad, because it was a great sports moment that I actually remember.

Drinking when your favorite team is in the post season is fun for having stories to tell, but otherwise? Always a bad decision.