A Mulhern Family Xmas

For those of you that don’t know my mother’s maiden name is Mulhern and we ascend from and Irish and German heritage, and one thing we definitely take from that is our love for the sauce. Our Xmas is no different than most we get together with the family and we just catch up and enjoy each others company. Though we all live in the upper Midwest xmas is usually the only Holiday in which we all get together. The one big difference is pretty much every one close to legal drinking age likes to get hammered. Alcoholism runs in our family, every single one of us cousins has been affected by it at one point in our life. Nobody sees booze as a problem in our family and we only look at it as a release from the many other problems that we all have. Basically any chance we can get to tip a few back we take it. Now I normally do not indulge in these activities in front of y relatives, which I know will surprise many, but I don’t like losing my cool in front of my family. I have no problems doing this in front of my friends, as many of you know, but booze brings out the worst in me and I don’t want them to see that side of me. However when the cousins get by themselves I no longer hold true those words.

One xmas which had to be about 3 years ago now, we spent the day at my grandmothers in Montello. It is a nice place on the lake, but we have about 45 family members now and the place is just not big enough. I was enjoying a few of my Grandfather’s home brewed beers (yes he tried to make his own beer, but the shit was god awful, nobody had the heart to tell him, and I think my cousin by marriage zirbel actually drank a damn 6 pack) when the decision was made that the older cousins made the decision that since we are all together why not hit up some bars when we got back to Madison. My cousin C$$ loved the idea and decided that he would switch over to Tom and Jerry’s, in which my Gramps was whipping up in the back, I guess he really wanted to prime the tank. Well xmas went well, there was no accusations of sexual harassment, no surprise pregnancies announced, and basically everyone just bull shitted all day. Then we all headed back to the madtown.

My cousin Dave lives in Minnesota and is one of the wildest men I have ever met, fortunately he is has been tamed by his lovely wife and family, but don’t let this fool you, get him away from his family and give him a few stiff drinks, and it doesn’t take long for him to revert to his old ways. I have always been a bad influence for my older cousin’s, I like to play it off as they are the bad influence on me, but the truth is they are usually pretty low key. Then I talk them into going out, a few drinks later we are back to our old tricks that would certainly get them in trouble if they tried this on a regular basis. Well Dave had a hotel on E. Wash and he scouted the lounge bar the night before and we decided that would be a good place to start. We ordered a couple double jack and cokes and got the night started. We probably drank for a good hour and half before some of my other cousins filtered in. When it was all said and done there were about 6 of us ready to go out on the town. Our night started out at the Silver Eagle in Monona. I fucking hate this bar, I just don’t like the sleezy clientele that hangs out there, again this may surprise many of you. Still I was feeling good and I would have god drunk outside in the cold with some homeless guy if that’s all there was. It was the day of xmas and I could not believe how many people were out. The place was backed wall to wall and the sounds of terrible Karaoke were filling my ears. It wasn’t long before we were all tipping back shots and getting as we like to call “getting Mulhern wit it”. We met these two nice girls that informed us they made there living dancing for cash. I immediately fell in love as I do with all exotic dancers that will take the time to say hello to me. They were cutting up a serious rug on the dance floor, and it wasn’t long before there was a full on lesbo scene right in front of us. These chicks were getting hammered and the best part about it is they had loads of singles. I saw in her purse and she probably had $100 in singles rolled up. So she would go up and buy a drink, bring it back to our table, head out to the dance floor, and I would proceed to drink about ¾ of the way. She would return finish her drink and go buy another one. She did this about 4 times and she would say things like, “wow am I drinking fast tonight” or “I am so drunk I probably have 15 drinks”. Personally I kind of regret not letting the Novocain do its trick, and by drinking all of her drinks I probably ruined my chances. Still I got hammered on the cheap, and I was going to have one hell of a night. It wasn’t long before good ol C$$ started his tricks. For those who don’t know my cousin Craig, who is also a contributor on the blog often referred to as C-Weed or C$$ or one of the million countless nicknames he has given himself over the years, but he is probably the most fun person to hang out with when you both are drunk. He likes to take any and all opportunities to really stir up the pot, whether that be to get everyone dancing on the dance floor with moves that would put a shutter down j-timbs spine, or picking a fight because he wants to prove that although he has a small stature he is anything but weak. I have found this out many times by the way and I still don’t know if I have ever got the best of that kid at anything. He sure wouldn’t admit if I did. On this evening however he was concentrating on turning the place inside out with some patented karaoke. Another thing you may not know about my cousin, is he is a free lance artist and he is very talented at that. While he was in college he came out with a hip-hop cd that was blowing up on the tri-county undergrounds. The cd was very good and it started what is now becoming his legendary karaoke career. Well C$$ picked out the perfect song, Jump, Jump, by Kriss Kross. Now I know everyone thinks they know the words to this song, but really all they know is the hook. This song had to be impossible to Karaoke and C$$$ nailed about 95% of it and had the crowd going wild. The rippers were getting down, the mulherns were loving it, and Craig was feeling good. He ended the last verse with his own little free style with the new chorus “C$$$ will make you Jump, Jump”. Needless to say he rocked the house, but we had a problem starting arising. Two of our drivers were getting hammered, my cousin Andrew, Dave’s brother, was my ride, and he could hardly stand up. We figured we needed to get closer to home and soon.

We headed to the Sports Pub to finish our night, it wasn’t long before my ride was missing. I looked every where for him but he was no where to be found. I decided to go out to his car to see if he had bailed. I got up to the drivers side door, and saw a huge pile of vomit, and inside Andrew was passed out. He looked safe enough and I headed back inside to get a drink. We partied there until bar close, before a few of the cousins took off. I had a dilemma, do I stumble back to the hotel with Dave and sneak into his room where his wife and two year old child are sleeping? What the hell should we do with Andrew? I cannot drive that Mitsubishi P.O.S. that he was driving cuz I cannot drive stick and I was probably in just as bad of shape as he was. I go out to wake him up and there he is drinking coffee that god knows where he got, and smoking a cigarette. He denied that he puked and instead said he was feeling tired so he took a nap. Anyways he told me he was fine to drive and gave me a ride home. It was a great night spent with my great fam, and here is to this year being just as wild!