The Bar Scene

We topped off our our evening's festivities at Nick's English Hut on Kirkwood. This watering hole is Bloomington's equivalent of Cheers. When we arrived, the place was packed and it wasn't even 8:30 yet. Our little group made our way up to the Hump Room on the second floor and quickly found a table. I was still fuming from the incident at the restaurant. Even though Josh and I sat next to each other, we didn't look at each other nor was a single word spoken between us. While he focused on the college basketball game shown on the big screen television, I entertained myself by observing what the other patrons were up to.

Let me tell you, there was a lot of action going on. To our right, was a large table occupied by sorority sisters and their moms. The group was intensely playing "Sink The Biz," a drinking game that originated at Nick's quite a number of years ago. Named after the infamous sinking of the Bismarck, the World War II German battleship destroyed by allied forces, the game is played by placing a large metal bucket filled with beer (approximately two pitchers worth) in the center of the table. A weighted juice glass (the Biz glass) is floated in the center. Each participant has a full pint glass of beer in front of them. Going clockwise around the table, everyone takes a turn pouring beer from their pint glasses into the Biz glass in the bucket. They can pour as much or as little as they want. The object is to keep the Biz from sinking. The person who sinks the Biz has to drink it fast like it is a shot. Furthermore, if the same person sinks the Biz three times, that individual has to drink all the beer in the entire bucket. In reality, depending on who is playing, the participants' goal might or might not be to sink the Biz. If they want to get stinking drunk, they'll make sure to sink the Biz---every chance they get. It was amusing watching this gathering of upscale moms and their female offspring calculating how much beer to pour to keep the Biz afloat and then it was fascinating observing how the losers handled their fate.

To my left was another interesting crowd. They looked way too old to be college students. And based on their actions, they certainly didn't behave like parents visiting their kids. Without a doubt, all of them were wasted. Many of them also appeared stoned out of their minds. A loud bunch, they were oblivious to all the attention they were drawing to themselves. A few very well-endowed, somewhat attractive women in their group were busy giving lap dances to a couple of men who were seated in the middle of the gathering. While this was going on, several others got up and began bumping and grinding on the dance floor. As they gyrated, some of the men felt up their partners while a couple of the women blatantly began stroking their dancing buddies crotches. I was trying to figure out who these people were and what they were doing there. The only thing I could come up with was that they were local swingers. I thought this would be a good time to try to break the tension between Josh and me. I pointed out the happenings to our left and asked him if he'd ever seen these people here before. He looked over briefly, stated he didn't recognize them and then went back to the action on the television screens.

By 10:00, all the day's activities were starting to catch up with me. Thankfully the other frat mom was as exhausted as I was. We told our sons that we were ready to get back to our hotel. I'm sure our kids were relieved to hear this. They were probably wondering how much longer it would be before they could finally drop us off and then go party like they really wanted to. All I knew at that point was I couldn't wait to get back to my room, crawl into bed and go to sleep.