This essay is dedicated to the Quay Family, who always gave me a home when I had none. Special shoutout to my pimp, Erin, my Consigliere, Allyson, and my homeslice, Meaghan. And of course the Big Dawgs themselves Cooper and Millie ❤
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The night was starting off right.
“Guys, listen,” I leaned in closer over my whiskey sour. “We have to get up at 3am to go to the airport, so we’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow no matter what, right?”
“Ohhhh,” Carla gave me a limp faced wink across the table. “I’m sponging up what you’re squeezing out.”
“Shall we take a shot?” Tristan asked.
We were at the famous Temple Bar in Dublin, and the energy by the bar could light up several thousand small microwaves, or a small town. Or the microwave inside each house in a small town. The point is, at 8pm on a Tuesday the place was already packed to the brim with drinking and dancing.
Carla bought a round of shots, and in order to even out our pockets we each bought a round. After I covered the last round the band in the corner started to play “Whiskey in the Jar”(by The Dubliners, not Metallica), and I nearly fell out of my seat tweaking like a middle schooler in 2010 hearing One Direction for the first time.
Down the street was the Quay Bar, and I insisted we went in, as some of my closest friends I grew up with back home bear the last name Quay.
The Quays gave me a home when I got kicked out of my own, or when I needed a place to belong. The Quays always welcomed me in and offered me a seat at the table years before I realized I deserved one. They gave me my first drink, and took care of me when I blacked out in an incredibly self-destructive fashion at my first party in high school. They showed me a good time, and always made sure I was taken care of.
So in Dublin, I ordered my first ever Irish Slammer in honor of the Quays of New Jersey. (This drink is a glass of Guiness alongside a shot of whiskey and Irish Cream liqueur commonly known as the Irish Car Bomb, in reference to the bubbles that explode when you drop the whiskey-Irish cream shot inside the Guinness glass, just like the explosions of the devastating car bombs during The Troubles from ‘68 to ’98. Some of the Irish consider this “car bomb” reference insensitive to the lives that were lost in the bombings.)
“That’s fucking offensive!!!” The bartender yelled when I ordered it as a Car Bomb. “HA, just kidding,” he said after a beat. “Shoulda seen your face.”
I first saw an Irish Car Bomb on Saint Patty’s Day back in New Jersey, with the Quays and some other childhood friends. We all sat at a big wooden table in an Irish pub, and I felt the magical warmth that only old, familiar faces can bring.
In the following weeks of exploring Europe, I recognized the duality of traveling. There is so much novelty to explore and navigate in new places, yet with that novelty comes the sacrifice of the comforts and connections of home.
Nowhere in Europe was I going to find anyone who knew me when I was a shy eight year old, or a shy seventeen year-old wandering away from the party in the basement to poke at the parakeet cage upstairs.
The sacrifices of traveling in May include missing celebrations back home, like birthdays and graduations. This particular night in Dublin happened to also be the day of my friend Meaghan’s wedding. So before I started drinking, I made sure to send her and her new husband Dylan a congratulatory text.
“Thanks,” Dylan responded, almost immediately.
“Who is that^” Meaghan texted a few minutes later.
Ha! She’s pretending not to have her husband’s number. I thought, and sent the “haha” reaction.
“Seriously, who is that,” Meaghan texted back.
Huh. I stared at my phone for a second, and then it dawned on me.
I checked my contacts, and sure enough I had three numbers saved as “Dylan”. No last name.
I’d sent a “congrats on your wedding and everlasting love” text in a group chat with Meaghan, the bride, and Dylan, a kid I slept with a few times in Colorado. At least I didn’t make the group chat with Dylan, my ex-boyfriend.
“You’re welcome,” I replied to the Dylan who stays triple strapped with condoms, and made a new group chat with Dylan, the actual groom, to try again.
Mistakes were made, but the Irish Car bomb wasn’t one of them. After the Quay Bar, my memory-making neurons tapped out. What I can say for sure is that it was one of the best nights out I’ve ever had, for the live music was so good I forgot men and sex existed. Find me a club in America that has a one man band playing “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis, and I will sit in there swaying and drunkenly sing-screaming for the rest of my life.
We returned to our hostel around 2am with our alarms set for 3:45 to catch the bus to the airport for our flight to Milan. Ready for a quick nap, I got all cozy in bed and immediately had to pee.
I ripped the covers off and stumbled blindly through the 8 person all female dorm I was staying in with Carla. When I made it to the communal bathroom door I found it to be locked, yet there was no light on inside.
I played with the door handle a bit to see if it was stuck, and heard a slosh from inside that could’ve only been made by a leg moving through a tub of water.
Someone was taking a fucking bath! I traipsed back to my bunk in defeat to pull my shoes on and make the trek down to the building bathroom in the basement. As I was rustling around in the dark with my flashlight, I heard a British accented whisper from behind me.
“Do you have to take a wee too?”
I turned to find a small lady who looked like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter peering at me from the shadow of her pillow.
“Desperately,” I whispered back. “Come with me, I know a place.”
And so that’s how I ended up going to the bathroom in the basement and cursing a midnight bathtub soaker with a 50 year old British lady in Dublin. We returned to the room and said goodnight, never to see each other again.
Settling under the covers I thought of The Quay Bar and the Quays and the Dylans and Harry Potter, and began to drift off to sleep.
I opened my eyes and texted Dylan of the many condoms, who was a country away and several hours in the past.
U up?
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