After Hours Life Style…

Not until a pandemic comes around do you discover just how much time and money was spent on alcoholic beverages at bars! A strange thing happened: week after week of sheltering I kept finding extra cash in my pocket. Typically, on average, an extra $300+ bucks per week. I was still going to the ATM each week thinking I needed the cash, but as It turned out…nope!

It caused me to reflect a bit on how I even arrived to the level of socializing I was doing pre-pandemic era. Turns out…a lot! Some of that $300+ a week drinking and socializing habit also paid for other people’s drinks, occasional food and a taxi or Uber ride home.

Where did it really all start? Well, I go back as far as when I turned 18 years old. I was one of those December babies, which in California at the time, meant you went to the next year’s school year. In other words, I should have graduated in 1983, but instead, I was pushed over to the next school year, 1984. Thus, I was 18 1/2 years old when I graduated high school. That in it self had a lot of benefits in my favor. The biggest one: I could write and sign my own late, sick and field trip notes for school. I no longer needed parental permission for anything.

But the biggest thing going on in my life at that time was I was able to move out of the house at 18 years of age. You know…because I was experienced, wise and a mature kid, all at the age of 18, moving out seemed like a fun thing to do. Well…not so much! A stupid kid was the more accurate description of me at 18 years of age. But, in order to save myself from the “I told you so” parents who were frothing at the mouth to tell me that, I never gave in, and, even in the worst of times of being on my own, and it was hard, I somehow survived it. 

What I remember the most about being on my own for the first time was money! I had to make sure I had enough money to cover rent, food, gas, car payments and car insurance. Gas, at the time, was about 0.75 cents per gallon. Rent was $300 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment, which I split in half with my roommate. That guy was a college student.

Our refrigerator and cabinets looked like this: after paying rent and bills, whatever was left over went to food and beer. Our cabinets were filled with Wonder bread and ramen. Our frig had hot dogs, bologna and lots and lots, probably 2/3rds of the frig…lots: Lucky Lager beer! Back then you could buy a case of 24 bottles (30 packs had not been invented yet) for about $5 bucks. I can tell you $5 bucks was a lot of money then. You could stretch your dollar a very long ways. The bottle cap was entertaining. It had riddles to solve on the inside of the cap. We had beer caps all over the living room floor and coffee table.

Lucky Lager beer was the gateway to my whiskey habit. Living on my own was the gateway to a lot of house parties, socializing with friends and lots of booze…The one thing I truly regret and I’m sorry about…was the hell I put my parents through.