Last Saturday confirmed all my suspicions. It’s 2:30am and the music has stopped, the lights are on and I’m as hungry as a size-zero model in a McDonalds for the first time in their life. I step outside the Forum and it’s raining cats and dogs. My fancy dress plan was initially going to be a crude attempt at my role model and idol, Captain Morgan. It didn’t work out that way though.

I had dug through the end of my wardrobe and eventually rustled up a Death costume from yesteryear. It was nothing to get excited about except for the hood that covered your entire face to create an air of mystery which admittedly granted me the freedom to dry hump (amongst other things to be fair) everyone in sight, all whilst remaining anonymous. Hoods are dangerous though.

Cats and Dogs are bouncing off my face and the only thing on my mind is a chicken burger freshly harvested by some Polish slave worker in Hill Billies. My friends are all creeping about outside the Forum, either catching up with old friends or going in for the kill on the haplessly unaware! I wanted no part of such debauchery though and instead opted to pull over my hood, put my head down and run into town where I could get all the breast I wanted. And then I could go get chicken.

I probably got a hundred meters before childhood memories suddenly came flooding back. See, when I was about 3 years old, and this is one of my earliest vivid memories, I was oddly environmentally aware. I had just finished a Loop The Loop ice-lolly and wanted to dispose of my lolly pop stick in the safest possible way so I broke away from the tight grip of my mother and ran down towards the nearest bin at the bottom of the street. Proud of completing my civic duty, I turned around to my mother to wave in delight. My mother got quite animated, obviously immensely proud of me. I woke up twenty minutes later.

As it turns out, the only thing between me and the bin was a lamp post.

In retrospect I think I got away quite lightly. I did kill a tooth though. How do you kill a tooth? Simple really. You run as fast as you can towards a bin, turn around and wave to your mother and then look back just in time to wrap yourself around an iron pole and knock yourself unconscious and sever the nerves in your gums.

Fast forward seventeen years and I’m once again hurtling towards a pole only this time I have a fucking black veil across my face which gives me the same eyesight as a 90 year old World War II veteran. I know the road though and manage to maneuver my way around a few obstacles. I think I’m in the clear and put the proverbial foot down. I notice three people eating chips outside the Ballybricken Chipper. It’s the last thing I notice.

“OOOOOOOOOOHH” is all I hear in chorus as I suddenly come to a stand still. Actually, a “stand still” is a very generous description of myself. A collapsed mess would be more apt. I pull the veil back over my head and see a pole standing over me. One of the avid chip eaters from across the road comes over to see if I’m okay while I can still hear the unmistakable ring that’s created when Pole meets Skull. Either that or they were going to rob me. I’m conscious though and they go back to their fish and chips.Bastards with their food. I send a text to my friend which simply read “fucking Pole. I’m in a bad way”. When he arrived, fists clenched, he demanded to know where the dirty foreigner had gone. I should have saved face and cut my losses by admitting that some greasy Pole started on me and attacked me for no reason. Instead I told him the truth. To summarise, it pretty much went like: “I’m a fucking retard who runs into iron poles for the craic”.

It’s then that I notice I’m bleeding. I’m so preoccupied with with wiping my face and trying to keep up with my friends (who I was ironically running away from in the first place) that I then walk into another pole. If I was trickling blood in the first place, I was pumping at industrial pace now! I was bungled into a taxi and sent home. It was probably for the best but I ended up not getting any food which was the reason why I turned into a unsighted Usain Bolt in the first place!

I took a photo of myself which kind of made me look like some kind of rape victim but thankfully I got a text the next morning that said I wasn’t raped but went into a Pole instead. Had I finished that double Morgan’s and Coke that was knocked out of my hand before I left, that text probably would have been appreciated much more.

It’s now Thursday and most of my face has healed. After about a day of washing, I managed to get rid of all the caked in blood to reveal the actual size of the cut. I probably could have done with a stitch or two but I think I can live with another scar. It’s not like I was going to become Nivea’s next big thing by brandishing the man tan on national TV! To compound the idea that a stitch would have come in handy is the fact that I now have blood trickling down my face again. Apparently random people love picking at random peoples scabs. They should just get their own to be fair.

I can’t get away from the fact that it’s another scar and another embarrassing story to go with it! The last scar I earned goes about halfway down my shin after I mistimed a jump between two walls while running and took a healthy chunk out of it. I swear that the next scar I get is going to be for something heroic like falling out of a tree after rescuing a blind cat. Knowing me I’ll probably just clock another pole – I’m an expert at this stage!

For now I’ll skip forward a few weeks to the present time. I’ve just made it home after waiting half an hour in an Indian take away for my end of night food. Indian food is world renowned for it’s unique flavour and it’s interesting to note that Indians are far more popular than Chinese in England, in restaurant terms, which is perhaps the result of the Chinese getting to Ireland first and getting a firm grip of the place before the Indians eventually came to our shores.

“I’ll have a Vindalloo” would usually be my instinctive request if I ever found myself at an Indian takeaway as drunk as a wino on Dole Day. I had a brief look at the menu though, and was overwhelmed with the numbers. Options 1 through 60 all looked the same to me until I caught glimpse of the big notice underneath the conventional menu which offered a Doner Kebab roll and can of coke for €5. Yes please.

A half an hour passed and all my friends got their food – traditional Indian curries and the like. I was still sat there talking about cricket of all things to the sole member of staff. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Ali at the counter sent Mohammad in the kitchen over to the Istanbul across the road to get a few slices of Doner meat. During this time I wondered what the hell Doner meat was. I’m glad I was too drunk at the time (and probably still am) to even begin to comprehend just how little meat goes into this “meat”.

I eventually got my meal, and I use the term “meal” extremely lightly, perhaps to the point where I don’t even classify it as a meal and more so call it a challenge to the stomach. My stomach passed. Thusfar.

It’s just gone 1am and I’m stumbling around a nightclub looking for my friend. I haven’t been this drunk in all of four days and it takes me a good 20 minutes to actually stop and ask someone in our group where he is. Turns out he’s already gone home meaning I’ve been pacing around for no reason other than wearing down my shoes! My other friends are having one of those drunken heart-to-hearts down in the smoking area that you just know they’ll probably have no recollection of come morning so I figure there’s nothing really keeping me there so decide to leave. And then it grabs hold of me.

The urge to get some hours in at the poker table suddenly envelops me. Our local club runs a cash league which rewards players who spend over 50 hours at the tables over the duration of the league. I’ve been creeping ever closer to the magic 50 mark over past number of weeks but the deadline is looming and I’m still a bit shy of the target so I opt to head up to the club where I’ve been informed there is lively game in progress. I’m fully aware that everyone is going to be licking their lips when they see me fall through the door, so I devise a plan to buy in for only €50 and play tighter than a ducks arse underwater and let them pay me off. Sounded easy in my head anyway!

I sit in and ask for some coffee before taking out my wallet and hand over €100, instead of €50! Not a complete disaster, as I can still play tight and now I stand to win more should I hit a big hand! Unfortunately, if you stand to win more, you stand to lose more and I soon realise that my plan has unravelled when I go all-in on an A-4-5 board that has two hearts after it’s checked to me. It would be an acceptable play if I had something like two pair or even the Ace, but I was playing with 7-8 offsuit! So much for playing tight! I haven’t even finished counting my chips when I see someone else shovel all theirs in! I hit an eight on the turn meaning this anal pounding I’m getting has eased slightly. A ten falls on the river and I’m told that I’m ahead as they missed their flush! I excitedly turn over my eight only for him to flash a ten! The table looks a bit shocked when they see my cards turn over and they all collectively lick their lips when I reach into my wallet once more!

I reach into my wallet once more in the whole hour that I’m there. I finally throw in the towel when I don’t feel confident that my Queen-Jack is good any more after I check-raise on an Ace high board only to find myself getting two callers. Needless to say, it wasn’t! I’m down €240 which translates to pretty much the entire contents of my wallet and at this stage the coffee is starting to sober me up. I really wish it didn’t though, because now I’m kicking myself for shoving with a gutshot and basically throwing money away. This especially hurts because I know I’ll remember exactly how I lost the money in the morning whereas had I not knocked back cup after cup of coffee, I’d wake up not having the slightest idea!

Indeed, waking up is a painful experience! As well as having the obligatory woodpecker going at my head, I have this subconscious voice shouting all kinds of abuse into my ear! I try my best to take no notice and start thinking about tonights game, a €35 freezeout with €1k Guaranteed. It’s a small game when you compare the size of the games in Dublin, but it attracts a nice crowd of players with “colourful” styles so there’s certainly some value to be found. This, I decided, was going to be my make or break night with regards qualifying for the league finals. If I didn’t pick up a result here, I was going to struggle to be able to play in tournaments or sit into cash games for the next week or so. With my fingers and toes crossed, I bought in and found myself sitting down at a great starting table!

Within the first few levels, I manage to build my stack up to 12k from the starting stack of 9k. I manage to flop a house with 8-3 from the blinds and check all streets before check-raising the river and getting paid! I then manage to double up off the then chipleader when I pick up AA for the first time in 3 weeks! It’s raised under the gun to 600 which is called in one spot. I re-raise to 2k from the blinds and get two willing callers. Flop is Q-Q-6 and I check-raise allin after the original raiser bets out 3k. He calls with KK and I hold. My next big hand comes some time later when I raise with King-Jack suited under the gun(!). I find a caller in the big blind who says he feels lucky. The flop comes 8-9-3 and gives me the flush draw. He checks and I make a continuation bet and he immediately announces all-in. I snap call and he curses me and tells me he has nothing. “‘Nothing’ is probably ahead of me right now”, I say to him. He turns over KQ which I really didn’t want to see, but I hit my flush on the turn and all is well in the world once more!

I reach the final table 3rd in chips, but I have the two chipleaders sitting directly to my left which is far from ideal. The player directly to my left has a massive chip lead, with about 30% of all chips in play but amazingly he managed to limp/fold his stack away which by all accounts was an impressive feat. I knock him out when I limp into his Big Blind in the hope that he’ll check his option but I haven’t noticed that he’s now shortstacked and he duly shoves. It’s not much more to me and I’m certain of a coin flip so I make the call and hit my King to topple his Ace high. I pick my spots for the rest of the final table and get into the money.

It’s not all plain-sailing though as I then lose a race with King-Jack suited which puts me down to 5 Big Blinds which really hammers home the fact that anything can happen when we’re playing with average stacks of 10 Big blinds! The chipleader soon finds this out the hard way when he goes from dominating the table to sitting out in his car within 3 hands! This gives me some leeway, as all the players remaining are relatively solid. I get a few pushes through and then I knock a player out when he shoves from the Small Blind and I call with Ace-Ten that holds.

We’re now three-handed and play for a while but it seems as if we’re just passing chips around to one another so I suggest we chop it three ways for €290 each. I feel as if I did have the edge when we were three handed as I certainly had the momentum with me, but I had this mental goal of winning more than I lost the previous night and really didn’t like the idea of finishing third. No-one opposes the deal and we play one hand for the tournament points which I win when I slowroll the bottom pair .

So, I shoot myself in the foot one day, but make a full recovery the next! I’m also now presented with a dilemma. I need another 11 hours to qualify for the cash league final which takes place Monday week but this tournament win means I’m now 50th in the tournament leader board, with the top 45 qualifying for the final! It would be agonising to miss both by such a small margin so I think I’ll focus on one of them for the time being. Trouble is, I don’t have a clue which one to commit to!

Despite complaining to everyone who would listen that I was stuck behind a bar all day, it wasn’t all that bad! While being stuck making lattes, cappuccinos and frapamachiattes (okay, I made that one up) for customers soon lost it’s charm, I was able to make enough money in tips to pay for my nights out in the Forum on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! I was working all three days of the festival and managed to go out as well… for free! I like free!

All this fun comes at a price though! Whenever I go out, I have a horrible habit of waking up at 10am the following morning. While it’s sometimes nice to savour the beautiful morning air, it’s pretty annoying when you had just stumbled into bed in a sorry state a mere 3 hours beforehand! Going into work on Sunday, I was already knackered. I was due to stay on until 2am, but decided against taking a break during the shift so I could leave half an hour early and go to the forum. A great idea you might be thinking, but I can assure you that any idea or plan that involves not taking a break during the busiest day of the year and going out and getting hammered is not recommended, especially when you’re due in at 9am the following day!

Despite getting to the forum at 1:45, I managed to drink myself silly thanks of course to the generosity of the Waterford public (oh how I love them!). Crawling into bed at 6am meant I didn’t have much time to sleep! In fact, I managed to get an hour of sleep before 1 of my 6 alarms I had set started going off! I somehow got into work on time to find that I was stocktaking for the morning which involved counting every single bottle of beer in the bar. Just what I needed at 9 in the morning with the eyes popping out of my head!

If 8 hours of counting bottles wasn’t bad enough, I then had to face another 7 hours dealing cards in Dungarvan. I can tell you that it took a lot of Red Bull just to be able to remain concious and it took every bit of mental strength I had left to be able to do my job! By time I got home at 6am, I collapsed into my bed and pretty much fell asleep straight away. I woke up one hour later to the sound of the postman at the door who wanted me to sign for some DVDs that I ordered online about two months a go! Now that I was awake I decided to watch Eyes Wide Shut, an appropriate film for the state I was in but I don’t think I understood what was going on as I was so tired. The only thing I remember is that there are a lot of boobs in it!

So here I am, laying on my bed complaining about needing sleep! You’d think I’d just put down the laptop and rest my eyes and drift into slumber land, but it’s not that easy as I’m so tired, it hurts to close my eyes! If I stay away much longer I’ll soon lose what little sanity I have left!

The night started off with mostly everyone being responsible, as did mine from what I can remember but within moments I could point out the people who were going to be absolutely hammered by the end of the night. There was one guy in particular who reminded me of myself this time last year. He kept ordering obscure drinks that he was trying for the first time and when he could no longer afford them, he started doing straight vodka!

I had discovered Sambucha for the first time at my own Debs and whereas everyone else was ordering pints of Heineken etc, I was ordering 3 shots of Sambucha! It didn’t take long for me to realise that if I moved from the bar, I’d just fall onto the ground – so I spent the rest of my night (the keyword being MY) holding myself up at the bar. Of course, people started buying me drinks because I was standing by the bar and I managed to drink enough to make me think I didn’t need the support of the counter to stand up straight – I did!

My own Debs night drew to a close at about half one in the morning, while the music was still playing and the bar still serving – I’m such a lightweight! I distinctly remember being in my hotel room at that time getting sick all over the carpet to the sound of “Sweet Dreams” with my date nowhere to be seen! The fact that girls were offering me head for free drink the other night really shows just how badly I messed up my Debs night!

Thursday nights Debs was a cakewalk so to speak. Only 90 odd people. We’re catering for 350 or so in the coming weeks. I have no doubt that there will be about 50 odd people like me at that Debs. At least I had the decency not to get sick on the dancefloor or piss myself like people did the other night!