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drunken bugs
by nate
Saturday, August 17, 2002
crawling and falling
I was on a recruiting trip to UNC in 1981 with my future roommate. It was February and we had just witnessed Wake Forest kick UNC's ass in basketball. That was UNC's only upset loss in a year when they won the NCAA championship.
We were hoarse from the game and needed BEER! It had started to sleet and rain a bit but my roomie, Matt Moss was from Beaverton, Oregon and I was from PA, so we figured we had severe weather and severe weather drinking experience.
This was my first time in a real college town and my first time in a bar other than the grungy dive bars that lined the streets of coal towns in central PA. What a difference. Real music, real girls and lots of ‘em. We drank way too much and hit on way too many girls. One of our future coaches from the team showed up and bought us several beers. I was in heaven. Matt could've hooked up with any of a dozen cute girls but he stuck with his big, goofy friend the whole night.
Around 2:00 a.m. we started to exit Henderson Street Bar, very inebriated and weaving violently. The storm had turned into one of those freakish southern ice storms where every surface was encased in a half inch of glittering ice. Being an avid hockey player I thought I was ready to just shuffle/skate on back to the hotel.
One step out from under the bar's porch and we both were on our asses, bruised and laughing hysterically. A few minutes later we found our severe weather drinking feet and were doing the ice walk shuffle slowly towards the Carolina Inn where we were staying. I wasn't really looking forward to the nearly mile long slide home but we were way too drunk and tired from the busy day to not find our beds and soon.
When we made it up to the corner where the Chapel Hill Post Office is on Franklin Street, we heard a lot of loud screaming and more laughter. Turning around, we both saw the entire population of the bar crawling and falling as they exited the bar. The power kicked off in the whole area and the bar was giving everyone the boot.
People were screaming in agony, laughing, and crying. It was surreal, crystallized mayhem. The creeping mass of party animals oozed out of the bar in a dark blob that covered the glassy ground. They all looked like drunken bugs as they made their way, slithering and creeping out in all directions, totally flat to the street.
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