Feel my heat.

I have been hosting pub quizzes at the Globe since September of 2004. Tuesday night's quiz was the 69th in that glorious series of trivia, and one of the more fun crowds we've had in that year and change since we started. When the crowd is fun, I think that I have to be extra fun, too, so I try to be Mr. Game Show Host. I think that is why this job appeals to me so much. It is really a cross between being a teacher and being a game show host, both of which are jobs that I believe I am well-suited for. I'm not talking about hosting the Newlywed Game or even Wheel of Fortune. Those jobs are lame. I'm talking Weakest Link or Beat the Geeks or even Jeopardy!. That's the kind of job for me. Trivia. Money. Fun. My kinda gig.

So, in the course of being Mr. Game Show Host, being that I play that role in a bar, there tends to be a fair amount of alcohol consumption done. This is not surprising to anyone, nor is it anything to be ashamed of, after all it is a pub quiz. After my usual hosting duties had ended on Tuesday night, I spent some time chatting up some of the teams, as they were new, or at least, new to my quiz, and well, there were some seriously attractive women there. Rob Gordon was a DJ to meet girls who like music, I host a pub quiz, amongst other reasons, to meet smart women.

Again, this is a very good gig for me.

After all my chatting, I checked the time. We ran a little late during the quiz, and by the time I check my watch again, it was almost 12. This is basically the two-minute warning for me as far as getting to work on time in the morning- I can make it here by 7 with 4.5 hours of sleep and be able to do my job. I won't be the most pleasant person in the world, but I will be here. This is when the waitress showed up and asked us if we needed anything. I was having a nice talk with a public defender and his friend, a non-traditional law student about my age. The public defender jokingly asked for shots- which were brought. These weren't my first shots of the night, either.

Needless to say, my judgment went south from there. Once those folks left, it was pretty much me and the waitress in the back, so I picked up my stuff and started to head home. I got to the front bar and saw a buddy of mine, a nice Scotsman, and asked him what he was drinking. "Jack, I'm afraid," he said, "I'm a bit on the broke side this week, and that's all I can afford."

"J, two Glenlivets and whatever you want," I ordered as I took my jacket off and put my bag of prizes down and slapped my wallet on the bar. "I'd like to buy this man a proper whiskey." I wasn't charged for that round, as, well, I'm not usually charged for anything when I run the quiz.

Yet again, this is a very good gig.

We talked and drank our scotch, our sketch. We finished up one, and J asked us if we wanted another. I, obviously employing absolutely no logic, answered yes for both of us. We talked more, and drank those down relatively quickly. "Can I get you gentlemen two more?"

Again, no logic was employed in my response of "hell yeah!" My buddy M mentioned that it was a school night, but that didn't stop us. What almost stopped us was that J had poured out only 1.5 shots before the bottle was empty.

"I can go get another one from downstairs." I started to waiver in my determination to continue drinking. It was, after all, fast approaching the time where I should definitely have gone to bed. M figured to go with the flow, and the flow was retrieved from the basement and another round was consumed. Finally, the waitress joined us, if not for a scotch, for a drink and some conversation. I found myself swept up in conversation with her, so much so that M had left without me noticing. I am, after all, a man, and sometimes a weak man. She was playing songs for me on the jukebox, Johnny Cash, Pixies, and all kinds of 80's New Wave. I was in heaven.

It was closing time- well, actually past it, so I locked the front door. I still had some drink to finish, and I was far from done with flirting, but I knew it was high time I went to bed. That's about when I decided that it was going to have to call in sick to work yesterday. We finished our drinks and headed out the back door, and there was that moment of drunken confusion where you wonder if you're actually going home with someone. Before any decisions were made, I said good night and headed home. Temptation and a lifetime of watching cheesy movies made me want to look behind me and see if she was still there, but the realization that it was 2:30 in the morning was a little too much for me.

I stumbled home and got some food out of the fridge. There was absolutely no way I would make it to work, much less through the day if I didn't eat something to stave off a hangover. I ate. I checked e-mail, another incredibly stupid thing to do, and went to bed. I set every alarm I could get my hand on, but I set each of them improperly, so when I finally woke up at 8:30, with my head pounding and my mind reeling, the first thing I did was call my boss. "You don't sound too good."

"I don't feel too good, either."

"Grab some breakfast and come on in, and we'll forget that you're 90 minutes late." I mysteriously agreed to this, and headed towards the bathroom. I was brushing my teeth and staring into my very bloodshot eyes when I realized that I was not only hungover like a dog, but that I was probably still drunk. I finished brushing my teeth, popped a couple painkillers an a vitamin and went back to my bed. I called my boss again.

"There's just no fucking way I'm going to do this."

"That's ok. Take the day off and recover."

"Thanks. I could use a bottle flu day."

I went back to sleep for a couple hours. When finally I awoke, I was sober, but was not feeling well. I went to the couch and laid back down. I needed the only kind of cure I could find- daytime TV. This didn't last long, as daytime TV has a habit of making me want to vomit when I'm not hungover, so I went to my computer and started wishing I was still in bed. Basically, for the next few hours, I spent the entire time going back and forth from my computer to my bed. By about 2:30 I was starting to feel human again, probably due to the fact that I had leftover tacos. Tacos. I love tacos. Perhaps I should learn of Maria's methods for evaluating chicken wings and start reviewing taco joints. I have more than a few favorites, after all.

Back to the story, although there's really nothing left to tell- except that I really must start listening to Scotsmen when they remind me, ever so gently in that wonderful brogue, "tis a skule night, ye ken?"