RIC...El Angel Solo

No, it’s not a misprint, it stands for Rest In Canada.

Well, our fine young Canadian friend El Angel Solo, Angela, has departed this country to go home to Toronto. That’s in Canada, stay with me people. We could do naught but send her away in an orgy of binge drinking, ugh, on a Wednesday.

The evening began as these evenings generally do, at a nomehodai (all you can drink for two hours) restaurant. 14 people, a mix of gaijin and nihonjin sat around a huge table swapping embarrassing stories, most of which didn't revolve around El Charro and I. This was comforting. The evening started simply enough. We all ordered drinks, and talked away an hour or so, salad, Vietnamese spring rolls, fondue, roast chicken and other various dishes were served. I planned on drinking but I didn’t plan on getting totally blasted, until El Jesus Aviendo rolled onto the scene and decided he wanted to make up his two hours of all you can drink, since he arrived late. We sat at the bar.


We ordered a shot of whiskey.
We ordered another shot of whiskey.
We ordered another shot of whiskey.

At this point we ran out of our chasers, vodka tonic, and whiskey and coke, respectively. So we refilled our chasers, and asked what the bartenders name was. He was a sprightly chap with fantastic hair, missing one of his front teeth. I don’t remember his exact name, but it was something like Shoita.

We instinctively and simultaneously named him Showtime, which, ironically enough was my nickname at Mather Street. Showtime seems happy with his nickname, we are happy showtime likes his nickname, but would have continued using it even if he didn’t approve.

We order another shot of whiskey.

This probably would have been the end of our binge, although since we had drunk the shots in less than a half hour we weren’t really feeling it yet. Then another Gaijin who has his own school in the area, who we’ll call “The Hat,” came over and said, “Hey, you guys doin’ shots of whiskey?”

We order another shot of whiskey.

Our nomehodai was running short at this point, we didn’t have too much time left, and then another Gaijin, the one who is replacing El Angel Solo at SES, who we’ll call “Pretty McPolo,” came over and said, “So are you guys drinking shots?”

We order another shot of whiskey.

This is the first shot that does not go down smoothly. The gag reflex hasn’t kicked in, but my body is in the first stages of denial. At this point, El Charro, who is noticeably intoxicated comes over to the bar and says, “Gimme a shot of F!#$ing Whiskey!”

El Charro does not take whiskey well. This is evidenced by his behavior on the night of La Escuelito Corriendo’s birthday party. We yell at Showtime for the last time.

We order another shot of whiskey.

El Charro puts his glass down on the table, his eyes bug out a little bit, and he immediately sprints toward the bathroom. He does not handle his whiskey well. The nomehodai has officially ended, thank god, and I don’t remember anything that happened from the bar stool to leaving the restaurant, but it has been confirmed by multiple sources that El Jesus Aviendo put his head down and proceeded to vomit at the bar, on the floor next to his stool. He then apparently got up and vomited somewhere else.

The next thing I remember we entered Karaoke without him. We sat down, ordered drinks, qued up a few songs, and then my body rejected my whiskey. I stood up, steamrolled over 3 or 4 people, ran to the bathroom, and lost my proverbial lunch. I didn’t so much make a mess though, and cleaned up the toilet area before I stood up. I washed off my face, took my shirt off, and walked quietly back to the Karaoke room.

I then tossed my shirt in a corner, sat back down in my seat, and passed out for an hour and a half. Everyone apparently had a good time around me. I woke up for some reason during “Everything Zen” and grabbed a microphone and started singing again. Since the entire process of waking up and grabbing the mic took around 2/3 of a second, the audience was surprised. Than El Angel Solo requested one last Steve Wheat Pearl Jam rendition which I happily supplied and Karaoke was over and I went home with a cute girl from a small island south of Japan.

We took a shower, and despite the fact that the mind was willing, my body was not conducive to procreation at that particular juncture, and I fell asleep sometime around 6. I had class at 10 the next morning. Thanks to the girl I managed to wake up, one of my Japanese friends who was instructed to call my phone to make sure I woke up, called 45 times. He literally called 45 god damn times, and I didn’t hear the phone ring once. But I made it, everything was ok, the world was in order, and El Angel Solo was on a plane sometime Thursday night.