A very tasteless Thanksgiving

Dinner at White Spot followed by topless bull riding. How did Thanksgiving get reduced to this?

The topless bull riding was Annelle’s idea. Dinner at White Spot was mine. Carl was the one who suggested doing both.

At least the restaurant was empty. Most people were at home, with their families, eating turkey, enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving.

Our dinner, while neither home-cooked nor delicious, was free thanks to the $100 gift certificate White Spot head office gave me after I got the Norwalk virus and vomited for 12 hours the last time I was there.

This time, our meal consisted mostly of alcohol. It seemed safer that way. The only thing worse than spending Thanksgiving eating at White Spot and watching topless bull riding would be waking up the next morning felled by a second round of food poisoning from the same restaurant.

As for the topless bull riding, like I said, that was Annelle’s idea. She thought it would be fun to check it out (in a detached, anthropological way) after a guy on our swim team tried to pick me up by suggesting it as a first date.

A few other people caught wind of our plan and invited themselves along. Which is how eight of us ended up at the Buffalo Club watching the drunken clientele riding the mechanical bull.

It was like a frat party. Or what I imagine a frat party would be like since I haven’t actually been to a frat party. But I’ve seen frat parties in movies and this came pretty close.

There was cheap beer, bad music and spring-break-style drinking games on stage. One highlight was a trip to the bathroom where the girl in the stall next to mine let out a long, loud belch before violently vomiting all over the floor.

You know you’re getting old when all you want to do is slap some sense into these kids.

I wanted to hate it, and I did hate it, but I am ashamed to admit I also had fun. Once was enough, though. I can’t imagine ever going back. This is not how I normally like to spend the holidays.