Goodfriends

Have you ever felt really out of place? I'm not talking about the times you walked out of the can with toilet paper trailing from your pants, or even when, as a teenager, you had to skulk out of the classroom with your Trapper Keeper held low because at that age you had less control of your pubescent body than my infant son has of his bowels and bladder. No, I'm talking about those times when, if you really thought about how humiliated you should be by your behavior, you'd never go out in public again. I'm talking about how Hillary Clinton would feel if she truly considered the lows she's gone to in her presidential campaign. If I'd been stumping around, pointing my thumb at people because I didn't have the balls to tell my manager that it looks way dumber than actually pointing with my index finger, like a human, I'd never show my face again. Not to mention occasionally replacing that grating monotone with the voice of a black Southern Baptist, when Clinton is possibly even more white than our own Redneck Liaison.

The Texans and I should have been just as ashamed at the end of a recent night. We had cabin fever and were desperate to get out of the house for a drink, so we hit the closest place we could find on Colfax, Goodfriends (3100 East Colfax Avenue). The sign out front regularly touts the fact that the Goodfriends margarita has been voted the best in Denver several times, and there are few better ways to warm your heart and gut on a cold day than to knock back a good margarita or four.

Settled in our seats, we immediately ordered a round of the house margs. They arrived in individual drink shakers, which was encouraging, but that also meant we had to drink the disappointingly weak drinks out of martini-like glasses that were really suited to women's hands. So we promptly switched to beer, which proved a much better complement to wings. And both wings and beer go better with basketball on TV. We were excited to catch a crucial, pre-tournament college game that would have significant seeding implications, and so participated in our usual fashion -- bellowing at the TV, because it's been proven that volume correlates with your team's performance, and calling every foul or moving violation actually makes the refs call a fair game. But we soon noticed that nobody else in the bar's eclectic crowd seemed to care about basketball at an appropriate level. In fact, we kept getting looks that clearly conveyed that people were really surprised our work-release program allowed us to drink. The couples here were enjoying their margaritas and conversation, and obviously would have enjoyed them more if we'd have shut the hell up.

Instead, we continued to yell at the TV, and during breaks in the action proceeded to harass the rest of the Institute for not joining us. We also harassed Mrs. Texan Representative, who always gets us carded because she looks like she's maybe twelve and drives like she's twelve, too: She missed a perfect parking spot right out front. But despite being fish out of water, we enjoyed our night at Goodfriends. Like Mrs. Clinton, without regard for decency or even reality, we made the place our own for a few hours. That's the American way.