Saturday night is a bit of a blur for me, with bits and pieces embedded in my memory. Went to the Portland Timbers home opener with my ex-BIL and by the time we made it to our seats, I was probably 8 beers and several tokes into the night. I kept the pace up all game long as it was cold and wet and I figured the best course of action was to warm myself internally with more beer.
For some reason, and I'm not sure why, I was not in the stadium when the Timbers scored the tying goal. I think I was outside bumming smokes and passing my pipe around to strangers like I was an Indian trying to make peace with settlers. By the time my BIL exited the stadium and found me, I was lit up like a Tokyo skyscraper and swaying back and forth to an invisible band. We attempted to follow a large crowd of revelers into a bar across the street - a bar we were at before the game. I was politely asked not to come inside.
BIL and I decide to head back to our side of town but instead of going home, we think the neighborhood strip club is a good option. I've tried like hell to avoid this place over the last year and change, but in my state of mind, I would have agreed to just about anything. Channeling my very best SLB, I was able to get us into the place without paying a cover and despite the fact that I was not welcome at a bar near the stadium, this place welcomed me with open arms. And why wouldn't they? A drunk GM is a money dropping GM.
The club has a back patio with heat lamps and pool tables. It's a great place to mingle and bum smokes from the strippers. Also not a bad place to find a stripper who would very much like to join you for some video poker action. In fact, I would say it is probably the VERY best place in the world to meet a stripper who wants to join you in some video poker using
your money, hitting a straight flush, printing the winning ticket out of the machine for several hundred dollars and then promising to cash it out right after her set with an even stronger promise to make sure I get my
half of the loot.
I think you all know where this is going. Said stripper who hit a straight flush, printed out the winning ticket and hurried off to the dressing room but never emerged to dance her set. In fact, she never emerged again. My BIL said he had to go home. "Go home", I told him. "I'll walk home later. This girl has a big winning ticket and will give me the cash just as soon as she gets done with her set. She PROMISED me this". He leaves. I stay. It's getting late. I'm watching the dressing room like there's a fugitive inside and I'm her bounty hunter. I begin to ask questions from other strippers and the bartender....but I don't know her name. I try to describe her to the bartender...."Uh, she's wearing a short skirt, has dirty blonde hair, a few tattoos, really big boobs"......bartender says "Honey, you just described every girl in this place".

Before long, it was last call for alcohol. Soon the lights were coming on. My phone is full of texts from my wife asking where I am. I have a mile and half walk home. In the rain. Without my cut of the loot.
I'm ready for the Mike Mills story now, Tanner.