A night on the town

After the football game on Saturday a friend of mine from California called me. He moved to Utah several years ago, and I haven't seen him since he moved. He wanted me to meet him for dinner so that he could introduce me to a friend of his, because we are the "two biggest BYU fans I know." So I went.

I met them at a restaurant in American Fork. Right after we sat down and I asked the guy arranging this to tell me his latest since it had been so long. I got the standard info on his employment and then he got this weird smile on his face and announced that his biggest news is that he no longer goes to church, because he doesn't believe it anymore. Most of dinner was spent discussing his apostasy in greater detail. The friend that was along was familiar with the situation, and I gather had already had these discussions with him. He was very nice though, and patiently endured me dominating the dinner conversation. Just as dinner was ending my friend asked if I'd like to go with them to a birthday party. The host was a guy we both knew back in California, so I agreed.

I walked into the door of the party and the first person I saw was a guy I knew from back in junior high orchestra. I think it took me a second of staring at him to register who it was standing there greeting me. It was very random. Aside from that, the party was really just a lot of guys standing around watching the Jazz game in the living room, while girls that I suspect made me look very scroungy in my jeans and t-shirt, paraded back and forth in front of the TV. One of the girls I know, but I couldn't quite place her, so I didn't chat with her. We left as soon as the Jazz game ended.

I thought we were going to a second house party, but thankfully it had been cancelled, so instead we wound up in the kitchen of some guys house, standing around in a group, staring at his large bulldog. I don't think I love bulldogs, it was a very loud breather. From there my friend announced that we would be going to a bar in Lehi to see some band play.

Nights like that one are probably why I have hearing loss. The band was really loud and the bar was really small, everyone there was super drunk, and there was way too much ute gear inside of that place. My fellow BYU fan and myself immediately felt a little self-conscious about our game day attire. I feel like the environment can best be described as "trashy country." There was a guy on the dance floor with pliers in his pocket. Actually, that's not true, the pliers were strapped to his side with some sort of little leather tool belt. I'm not one to look down on somebody for not being all spiffed up to perfection, but I really just think you could afford to shed the toolbelt for an evening out. At least think about leaving it in the car? To each their own... I did venture out to the dance floor once, but then I had this weird drunk cowboy winking at me from the bar, either that or he was winking at my dance partner...hard to say. That's how I started off going to meet a friend for dinner at Chili's and ended up at a bar in Lehi with a bunch of drunk ute cowboys. I eventually got a ride to my car and made my way back to the home front. Maybe I know more people in Utah than I realized.