The Chug Monkey Affair

There are plenty of reasonable motives or excuses for being inebriated while flying (unless, of course, you're the pilot), so I don't generally ask people why they're getting hammered before hopping on a US Scareways jet.  Consequently, I didn't ask the question on Friday night when I was dropping a friend off at the airport, and he suggested that we have a beer before he stripped down for the TSA reps at the security checkpoint.  Actually, I had a beer.  He had two martinis in about 20 minutes.  At the time we arrived, the best seats in the house were two stools at the end of the bar, the ones conveniently placed next to the mini bar-top video machine.  In more degenerate settings, these things typically feature games like "Spot the minor Photoshopped differences between these two images of a well-endowed topless woman."  (One of my female friends affectionately refers to this pastime as The Booby Game.)  Of course, since we were in a tiny airport bar and there were impressionable minds and eyes a mere ten feet away, this particular machine featured tamer fare, like a large cartoon ape named Chug Monkey who desperately wanted to play video beer pong with, um, anyone, as far as I could tell.

I was still slowly working on my beer when my friend finished his second martini and announced that he should begin the arduous process of convincing the TSA that, although he was experiencing alcohol blitzkrieg, he was really pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.  But, knowing that I didn't have anything better to do, prior to his departure he cautioned me against a couple things.  He said, "I don't want to read your blog next week and see something like, 'So then my friend left, I had another coupla beers, and damned if the Chug Monkey didn't start talking to me.'  Oh, and I also don't want to read anything about you hitting on any of the women in here, because they're all hideous."

Done and done.