It’s appears effortless for a girl to earn her free drink at a bar.
All she has to do is wear something that makes her tits pop and next thing you know, she’s white-girl-wasted with her friends on the dance floor, laughing at the guy she took advantage of. The only p-word he’s going to make wet is her palate.
I discovered the secret to getting a free drink without having a vagina: just say you’re a veteran. Everyone wants to buy a vet a drink. I discovered this by accident because my friend Mike was wearing a camouflage shirt.
It was a quiet Monday night in August. I had no intention of going out, but it was the last chance I’d have to hang out with my friend Jordan. She would leave to study abroad in Paris a few days later. Mike met up with us at Kildare’s. We were sitting on the patio, talking about how much fun Jordan was going to have in Europe, when an old man with white hair and alcohol spilled all over his clothes approached us.
“Thank you for your service,” he said to Mike. We assumed he thought he was a veteran because his hair was cut short and he was wearing a camo shirt. It wasn’t from the Army, it was from Macy’s.
“I’m not in the service,” Mike said.
“Don’t be modest,” the drunk guy insisted. “I know what I’m talking about. I fought in Vietnam. Are you saying I’m a liar?”
“No,” Mike said. “But how about you buy a veteran a drink?”
The Vietnam vet told Mike he’d be right back with any drink he wanted.
“I fought in Iraq, aren’t you going to buy me a drink?” I asked.
He accepted the lie and drink order. While he stumbled to the bar with a drunken walk, I addressed the situation.
“I can’t believe you said you’re a veteran,” I said. “That’s so disrespectful.”
“You did, too,” he replied.
“But you did it first,” I said, as if it made me any less of a horrible human being.
“Just accept the free drinks,” Jordan said.
After five free top-shelf drinks, I finally broke the seal. When I returned from the bathroom, I walked back out to the patio to a shirtless Vietnam vet swapping shirts with Mike. Then the Vietnam vet walked home.
“He just gave me a hundred dollar bill for my shirt because I told him George W. Bush gave it to me,” Mike said.
“You realize you’re going to hell, right?” I said.
“I think I’m going to heaven. I just made his day,” Mike said.
At that point, I couldn’t argue that the attention we were giving this American hero was better than anything the government was doing to honor him.
“He went home because he said he has 20 more dollars in quarters to give me for the shirt,” Mike said.
The Vietnam vet came back 20 minutes later with a grocery bag filled with quarters, but since there was only 17 dollars worth of change, he brought a pair of earrings for Jordan and a water gun.
I couldn’t even make this up.
At this point, the free drinks weren’t for my enjoyment, they were to get through this ridiculous situation.
I learned something that night, though. Everything comes at a cost — especially free drinks.