Travelling Lush: Basement dwelling

The question came as a surprise. The answer was all too easy.

It was another cold Saturday night at Tufts. Crammed up against weekend pizza boxes and overflowing recycling bins, a few of my housemates and I relaxed in front of the television. Our Saturday night, devoid of all the quality reality TV that could occupy any average American for hours on end, was fading fast.

Too tired to muster enough energy to organize the troops for the night's festivities and too broke to spend another night out on the town, we slowly went our separate ways. One to a house across campus, one to a Boston bar, another attending a late night dinner, and the stragglers still stuck on the couch.

And so it happened that it was just Justin and me... just Justin and me.

And then it all started: a miraculous and unexpected burst of energy. And then there were quarters, and then there was beer, and then there were quarters and beer. And as the quarters started bouncing and the Pabst started flowing, some unexpected visitors and a vodka-sprite on the rocks with grenadine suddenly brought the night back to life again. Who cares if the heat had broken for the third time in the last four minutes and that we were running out of liquids? The night was alive. It was back.

"Where to?" someone asked. Davis, Orleans, Underbones and good old Sligos were among the offers. And so it was decided. A night that had been nothing would now be something. Bouncing around the night spots in Davis was the plan, and even the frigid temperatures that had slyly snuck back nearly to zero could not dampen our spirits.

But almost as soon as Davis became our objective, the material constraints of the green back brought us back to reality. We were broke. A night at Il Panino in Boston the previous Thursday had drained us of our reserves, and even a few cheap drafts at Sligo's seemed out of reach. With Davis gone, we did what any twenty one-year-old seniors would do: we traded the atmosphere of a bar for the nostalgia and dirty shoes of Frat Row.

The night had landed us right back in freshman year, and I had to admit, I wasn't the least bit disappointed. As we slid past the bodies of our fellow Tufts students, the Pabst kept flowing and the music kept playing. Davis Square long gone from my mind; it was there, amidst the dancing and the freshman, that I learned of my new title.

Ironic, yes, that such a revered position would be awarded in such an atmosphere. More ironic even, that the title should come to fall upon someone who hadn't the will to make it anywhere on a Friday night other than the basement of a frat. And ironic even more still, that he was enjoying it.

But the question did come. And the answer was all too easy.

"Of course, I'll be the new Travelling Lush," I said. Of course I'll spend my nights perusing hot spots with the "intellectual" excuse that I am actually researching them. Of course I'll drink beer and write about it. Who could resist an opportunity like that?

Now if I can just make it out of the basement...