Open bars: best friend or worst enemy?

*This picture is fully explained below. The picture has been distorted to disguise the individual. If you recognize the person, please don't use real names for the dignity of the passer-outer.

If you didn't know open bars are these gifts from heaven where an events bar is essentially free! Yes, it's true, they exist. You walk up and order and WALK AWAY without dropping $9 on a jack and coke. I love them religiously. They take events that may have little to no potential and QUICKLY turns them into a legendary night. Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, birthdays, clubs: whatever, as long as I have all access to a full bar without opening a tab: it is ON. But open bars also entail riding a fine line between ridiculous blackout fun and seriously hazardous completely chaotic, puke drenched madness. Believe me, when you know it's free your mind has little to no resistance to over-drinking. It's tricky and shit usually gets messy in literally 3 seconds flat.

So a while back we heard about an open bar at this silly club called Etiquette downtown. The crowd is always a pile of crappy people who suffer from identity problems and receding hair lines , but they bump that head bobbing, ass shaking music that you want to dance to when your wasted with your best friends.

I head over there with two of my girls, who we'll call Alexa and Viola. Viola and I polished off a pint of Jim Beam (classy, I know) on route to the club as our pre-game. RED FLAG: MISTAKE #1. Never, I repeat NEVER "pre-game" for an open bar. It will be your downfall because its like going to the gym before you run a fucking marathon. Open bars are all about endurance and stamina. Remember: you want to be stay conscious as long as possible to consume as much of other peoples' alcohol as possible.

Ok we get there. Small line outside but I notice that Viola is making very LOUD, very UN-SUAVE passes at the bouncer. Things like:

"Oh my god, do you see how tall he is? His dick must be huuuge!" ALREADY!? We haven't even gone inside and shit is getting inappropriate. Oh boy, this is going to be good.

Alright what happens next is why I take no responsibility for what was about to go down in the next few hours. The hostess inside hands each of about a dozen raffle tickets and tells each one is good for a drink. She then says if we run out to just come get more from her. When I say raffle ticket, I literally mean the little tickets with the numbers that you try to win Disneyland tickets with at your school fundraiser. OK, let's back up: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! So your telling me each one of these papers is like a ten dollar bill that I can slam onto the bar and exchange for a drink of choice. I was a fucking kid in a candy store! Happier than that pill-popping Paula Abdul getting locked in a fucking pharmacy by herself.

We beeline it to the bar and get down to business. Tequila shots all around and jack and cokes to chase with. As I said before, we're looking to clear these fuckers out. We scope the crowd out a little and dance like we're back at a high school.

Ok were only about an hour in and things are getting sloppy. Alexa and I go outside for a cigarette, leaving Viola to her own devices. In trying to light her cigarette Alexa sets all of her side parted bangs on fire. They burnt up to a crisp along with all the eyelashes on her right eye. We both stand there in utter shock. Alexa starts freaking out, I begin to gag from the spell, and I just start hitting her face to get the ash off. RIDICULOUS. I lie and convince her she looks find and it'll grow back in 48 hours (what? the night must go on), and we get back inside.

Two of our other friends, "Chelsea and Veronica," met us at the club. Chelsea however, not being 21 also doesn't have a fake-ID. She tells me to find someone in the club, convince them to let me take the ID, so she can use it to get in and then she would return. OK WAIT, WHAT!? You want me to run around this very dark club, wasted, and ask strangers for their driver's licenses like a crazy person so my underage friend can get in?? I AM SUCH A GOOD FRIEND SOMETIMES. I make it my mission to get her in. A spot maybe 3 red heads in the crowd, which is the hair color we need for Chelsea. The first giggled and walked away, the second got angry and walked away, and the third was so drunk she would have agreed to let me eat her first born child: BINGO. Now that is fucking talent. You need years of training to spot people at their most vulnerable moments and shamelessly take advantage of them. Chelsea gets in and returns the ID.

Next, I'm mid-cigarette outside. By this point we've been opening baring it for about 2 and a half hours now and I've switched to beer. Alexa comes running outside screaming, "Viola just threw up on the dance floor. WE GOTTA BOUNCE." Alright we're not the classiest group of people but throwing up on dance floors is even a bit much for us. I'm hardly surprised, so I rush inside, to find Viola dancing her ass off, huge smile on her face, and grasping an open bottle of champagne above her head. I'm like, "Viola did you just throw up, do we need to leave?" She looks at me and is like, "HELL NO. I was chugging the champagne and it was too bubbly, so I spit that shit out." THAT is some funny shit.

Some time later Viola and I decide to bounce, leaving Alexa with her then boyfriend. We have lost Chelsea and Veronica but TRUST it's not for long. We try to unsuccessfully hail a cab/take the bus home for about 20 minutes until we found ourselves outside the club again as the clock is striking two am and everyone is spilling onto the sidewalk. We spot Veronica sitting by the club's door head in hands. Not at all a good state to be in when you're in downtown crack-den San Francisco at night.

We drag, literally drag, her to a bus stop where we run off to hail us all a cab. When we come back, home-girl is laying on the sidewalk, CHEAK AGAINST THE CONCRETE. This is the crazy, shit-hitting-the-wall kind of madness that can happen at an open bar. I of course, take a picture (see top of post), sober up pretty fast and get us a cab home.

We found out the next day that Chelsea ended up across the Bay in Oakland with a guy she met. Dangerous. We shouldn't have lost track of her, but when you hand me a bunch of tickets: I HOLD NO RESPONSIBILITY. Looking back I was saving bitches from down fall left and right. Kudos to me, fuck.

So flock to your next open bar, but be pre-warned you may wake up in the bartenders apartment with a black-eye, after shooting a low budget porno the night before.