Wild Nights in the Queen City of the Lakes

The alternative version of this story can be found here.

I was out on Elmwood last week when I ran into an old friend from high school (which is practically an oxymoron) who's at school in New Orleans. We chatted a little bit and then she asked me if I wanted to go out that night. "I don't know anybody in Buffalo so we can't go to parties or anything but we could see what's happening on Chippewa," she said.
"Well, okay, but I don't have any ID," I hedged.
"No problem, I'll fix you up before we leave," she replied breezily.

"Oh my god Caroline what'm I going to do?" I cried when I got home.
"You're going to go out on Chippewa and have fun," she replied.
"But I'm too young to go to bars! What if I get arrested! Think of the scandal!"
"I don't think it would be that much of a scandal," said Caroline.

That evening, my mum did my makeup while I stood around and wrung my hands. "What if we're killed in a DWI accident?"
"Do try not to let that happen," said my mother placidly. My friend came by in her dad's car to pick me up and we went to her house where we had a glass of Merlot as she used my Smith ID to make a very fake looking fake ID using some laminate she just had lying around.

I have to say, although since puberty I have looked forward to the time when I can go out on Chippewa, the bar scene in Buffalo on a Thursday night is pretty grim. "There are no guys here," my friend lamented. "Hey, we're not from around here," she drawled to some older men. "Where's kickin' tonight?" No place was. I didn't have anything to drink, largely because I was painfully aware of how young and out-of-place I looked. "I should really not let you get away with this," said the bouncer when he saw my ID, "But just for tonight."

We ended up chatting with some guys at the Crocodile Lounge and my friend invited them to go shoot some pool at another bar. They got increasingly drunk and as this happened, one grew boistrous and the other gloomy. My friend flirted with the rowdy one all through the game of pool and subsequent beer pong while the other lugubriously told me about his divorce, his collection of Johnny Cash mp3s, and how much he loves being a chiropracter. (Oh my god, so much.)

It was an interesting sociological experiment and all that, but I was just as glad when my friend decided it was time to go home.



"Of course we're not shocked- we assumed you'd be going to a bar," said my dad when I told him about my evening.
"I assumed you were just going to sit around in her house and smoke pot," my mother chipped in.

This is why I never really had any adolescent rebellion.