School's Out: Taylor's Bar and Grill (5/8/2002)

On a recent cold February day, I attended an event hosted by my old college friend Erika. I hadn’t seen Erika in more than three year, but my memories of her are decorated with the colorful behavior two girls their early twenties. When I walked into the Chelsea loft where the event was held I was greeted by a poised professional woman; a grown up version of the girl I went to school with. After her hosting duties where complete, we went out to catch up on the years we’d missed in each others’ lives. As we filled each other in on the present, we could help but take a detour down memory lane and I reminded Erika of the girl she once was.

Both being English majors, Erika and I took many class together in college. One semester we were tasked with working together on a presentation for our Film Criticism class and promptly waited till the last minute to begin work. The night before the project was due; we sat together in Erika’s room piecing together our speech and visual aids. After several hours we were quiet impressed with our progress and decided to reward ourselves and headed down to Taylor's, the local campus bar.

One drink at Taylor's evolved into many more until I found myself helping Erika back to her room after the bar closed. On the trip home, the sidewalk suddenly became animated and jumped up from the curb; causing us to crash to the ground in a fit of giggles. We picked ourselves up and stumbled home, shoving the presentation aside and passing out in a pile on top of Erika’s bed. The next morning we awoke less the half an hour before our presentation, to discover we has not finish the work and Erika had broken a toe during our tumble the night before.

We quickly pulled ourselves together and rushed to class. When we presented ourselves to the professor, we were unwashed, fuzzy eyed and covered in scrapes and bruises; Erika with a limp. I tried to create distance between ourselves and the professor when I realized we still stank of booze. Our state of disarray and the broken toe were able to earn us some pity points (and and icepack) and despite the fact that Erika was clearly still drunk during the presentation, we passed.

Now, almost a decade later, we sit together in a West Village bar and laugh at our former selves in the story.

“Can you believe the stuff we got up to” I ask

“I know” Erika answers “I’m glad we are so much more responsible now”

I agree and call the waitress over to order our sixth drink.

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