The Bank Bar & Grille (2239 East Colfax Avenue) is not only a good bar, it earns Most Favorable Bar Status from the Institute of Drinking Studies for its great happy hour. Lots of bars (but not enough of them) offer two-for-one drink or beer specials. Usually these happy hours are limited to the hours between 3 and 5 p.m., when mere mortals are still working. Alternately, these specials are part of "ladies' nights" that we here at the Institute believe constitute blatant discrimination, not to mention a waste of time, because there are always more guys than ladies present and the bar never seems to have enough booze to allow all of our researchers to go home with young ladies.
But the Bank has happy hours not just at the standard time but also at closing. And, in one of the best ideas since Viagra, the bar also gives out tokens rather than bringing you both twofer beers at once. After you finish that first beer, you slip a token to your server and, like magic, another beer appears seconds later. Not only does this save a guy from having to drink a warm brew, it saves liver cells, because patrons aren't compelled to slam their beers. Overall beer consumption is decreased and overall national health improved.
The tokens were obviously a guy idea, as are many of those luxuries we enjoy today that make it easier to enjoy life and act irresponsibly. And our happy-hour time at the Bank inspired another potentially great guy invention: a new marital aid. As envisioned by the Head of Pathologic Drinking, it would involve two people connected to an electrical device that would increase speed. I have no doubt it would do very well.
After an evening like the one we enjoyed, you need a safe environment where you can reconstruct the debauchery and recall those brilliant ideas. We here at the Institute suggest the Biosphere, devised by one of our researchers during his college days to provide a virtual-reality/greasy breakfast for the morning after. In the safety of the Biosphere, the night can be recounted with all the details intact -- including how much you drank, where you slept and with whom -- without fear of repercussion, ridicule or future mention. Outside the Biosphere, using the line "Boys will be boys" should do the same trick. This was commonly thought to be Prehistoric Mom's line, but as revealed in the Gospel according to Dan Brown (6:17), when St. Peter asked Jesus, "What's up with you and Mary Magdalene?" Jesus shrugged and replied, "Boys will be boys." This was such a huge hit with the Apostles that the phrase became one of the lesser-known Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. And no doubt it was the product of a morning-after stint in a biblical Biosphere.
Thus does civilization evolve. Guys get bored and go to the nearest bar. If they're lucky, that bar is as good as the Bank, which features a beer deal that gets creativity flowing, serves fine guy food and is quiet enough that everybody in the place has no choice but to share in your group's important discoveries. Without places like the Bank, we wouldn't have supercomputers or plasma TVs or Internet porn.
Now that I've let you in on the secret, you have no excuse for failing to make a contribution to society from the comfort of your own local bar, whether it's in Bahrain or Bailey. Or join me at the Bank: I'll be the one with all the beer chips.
