$30 bracelet

Do you like my new bracelet? Yes it's made of paper and it is a hideous shade of neon green, but this bracelet makes a statement to everyone that will see me tonight and for days to come. I am here to fucking party. This bracelet, or wristband if you will sends a message out to anyone that I will see tonight that I paid a flat rate to drink as much as humanly possible. It can equally be assumed that since I am on some sort of time constraint and I want to get my money's worth I must do so as efficiently as possible. No time for small talk, fuck off stop crowding my bar space. Bartender, I am going to give you an upfront tip right now of $10. That $10 means for the next 3 hours I want you to pass ma drinks at an alarming rate, don't bother watering down my gin and tonics, you are going to lose money on me. I realize that I am here for a birthday party at this bar, and that you do a wristband deal to make it easier on everyone and not necesarily so I can sit here pounding drinks alone and then staring down the bartender until I am granted a refill. You see bartender, I didn't want to come to this all you can drink "happy hour" from 9-12. I wanted to have a pregame at my buddy's house and play the music that I like and take vodka shots out of a bottle. Is that too much to ask? No it was much simpler to just phone it in and craft a "wristband deal" facebook event.

But I am here, and I realize that if I drink 30 cocktails in the next 3 hours I will bring my unit cost per drink down to about $1. That is a reality I can live with. Even though you shylocks are only giving me like .75 ounces of vodka per cocktail, I assure you I will get drunk. However, then you will rudely cut me off at midnight and start charging me $8 again for something that was in essence free the past 3 hours. I might as well be at home drinking alone. Any person I engage in any sort of meaningful conversation with will assume that I am irate at their very presence. Perhaps on a normal day I would choose to engage in a 15 minute conversation about this person and their job, and a cute story about their coworkers cat. Not fucking today! That story about Cuddles the kitten just cost me 10 minutes and possibly 2 full drinks...GO AWAY!

Oh great here comes the asshole who is going to buy a bunch of stuff not included in the package. Clearly he wasn't going to drink well cocktails and draft beer when he can order shots for the whole party...oh but what do I care, why am I so bitter? This is all supposed to be fun right? It's a birthday party at a bar, the idea of this when I was 17 would have blown my mind, now it's just a day in the life of a yuppie on Hubbard.

Fucking yuppies on Hubbard, it is kinda great. Every girl here is DTF for sure. None of these chicks appear to have any morals and they are all sporting $300 dresses and heels that probably cost more...and it's not even like they are trying to find a rich guy to be their sugar daddy, they are just here on the shallow hedonistic grounds of finding a d for the evening. All the chicks that go to Social, 51, Rockit, Hubbard Inn, they have jobs, they have wealthy parents. If they didn't they wouldn't be rolling in river north. Viagara Triangle is the home of the trash poking holes in condums, people around here, they just like to rage. Seriously take a look around, large groups of chicks falling over drunk with their friends, deciding whether or not they will let the roided out jersey shore clone propping them up, take them home or not...actually you know what, these are the girls that bring you home, and make you sneak out at 8am the next day, clearly they aren't in the mood for brunch.

All over the country people my age and younger are growing up or at least pretending to do adult things. Even the biggest trainwreck you knew 3 years ago may be living in the small town he or she grew up in or may have gone somewhere completely knew, they are engaged looking into buying a house, possibly adopting a pet with their partner. That shit doesn't happen here. Saturday night is about which bar's patio you will be drinking on during the day and who will be the first to get kicked out for puking under the table. On one hand it's pretty pathetic, but on one hand it's kind of awesome, I suppose whatever floats your boat.

Is it any coincidence though that the places that are keeping gen Y forever young are the major metropolitan areas? Chicago, New York and LA. You've got a bunch of failure to launch ex-frat guys running around in Chicago acting like Depaul students spening money like they aren't working entry level bullshit. In New York you have a bunch of wannabe Carrie Bradshaws pretending that they are going to be the next big thing in fashion or PR or make a name for themselves writing the About Last Night section on page 6. In LA everyone thinks they will be famous sooner or later and people that read about them later will be so surprised they hit it big. It's all an illusion, but I admire everyone's ambition to do something.

One thing they all have in common is that Saturday night, no one really cares about the bullshit that happened during the week, whether their rent check will clear, if their girlfriend knows about what happened Wednesday night, it's all an escape from the reality we have unwillingly entered. So take a chill pill on your solo boozathon once in a while to take in your surroundings. You didn't really see it coming but this is your world now, you are a young urban professional, but that doesn't mean you can't act like a child every once in a while.