CLAIRE FRANKY-INSPIRED WRITING

I Was Jacked Up on Flavored Tic Tacs

My winning trip to the 2003 NHL All-Star Game

Waiting outside before the game with Todd and guys like Todd Photo by Guillaume Hankenne on Pexels.com

It was January of 2003. I’d just arrived home with my friend Steve from a trip to Las Vegas, where I’d been drunk the whole time, up all night in the casinos gambling my tits off, hitting up the hottest nightclub — where Britney Spears was in attendance but we didn’t actually get to see her because we were losers — chowing down at breakfast buffets, and getting kicked out of a brothel right as I entered for being too inebriated.

I was young, single, and balls to the wall jacked up on flavored Tic Tacs.

I had the following day off from work because I was shrewd like that and planned ahead. My dickwad unemployed friend called me up that day and asked if I wanted to hit up a bar in Boston with two other guys for some day drinking. I obliged.

At the bar, which was only about a third full, a live sports radio broadcast was in session.

The radio station was doing a raffle in which the winner would receive two tickets to the NHL all-star game in Sunrise, Florida, all expenses paid.

Like a sly angler, I asked the barmaid if I could have more than one raffle ticket. “Sure,” she said and handed me a long sleeve of…