Authors note: Since the nature of the following story could be construed as damning, some names have been slightly altered. Not enough for anyone to notice the difference, though. Sorry, guys.
Jews are masochists.
There’s the whole indifference towards Jesus thing. Yeah, sure, they think he was a pretty cool guy, but he didn’t quite make the Messiah cut. No, they’re still waiting for the biggest thing, well, since Jesus.
But what happened on a chilly October 2009 night has nothing to do with JC. In fact, the possibility that a greater being was watching from upstairs is sort of unsettling. You see, what we initially intended to be a simple religious celebration, instead, turned into a night defined by petty crime.
For a practicing Jew, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year; it’s an opportunity to strengthen one’s relationship with God by atoning for the past year’s sins. This is done by a whole lot of praying and fasting: no food, no water, no tooth brushing, etc. For us, it was an opportunity to watch our college friend, Steven Likener, stuff his face as he was “breaking the fast.”
Last year, he decided to take down a one-pound burger, washing it down with a big milkshake. Steven’s performance was Herculean, but in the grand scheme of things, it will prove to be utterly forgettable because of what happened the year before.
Nothing could ever top our romp through Olive Garden.
Because it was the time of year when they offer the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, which is coincidently back for a limited time, it seemed like a logical place to gorge. There was—possibly due to some sort of divine intervention—a lengthy wait to get seated. Or maybe the rest of Bloomington’s Jewish community had the same idea we had.
When you’re there, you may be family—but let’s be real, you’re probably an angry family because you’re eating at Olive Garden.
Well, the wait was making us realize we were slowly becoming that irritated family. Roger Stranger, my brother for all intents and purposes, was getting quite restless. We needed to figure out a way to forget that we were still waiting at an Olive Garden, had already watched the sun set and hadn’t already consumed our body weight in pasta.
The answer: cheap wine, of course.
Roger sauntered over to the bar and said, “Can I try one of your Chiantis?”
This later would become a staple of any of our visits to an Italian restaurant, but for now, it was brought on by sheer curiosity. The barkeep must have sensed that we were pretty impatient; after all, she was dealing with the type of people who order a whole bottle of wine before being seated.
Now, I was still 20 at the time, so I wasn’t going to enjoy any of Roger’s red wine. There’s a chance I may have had a sip, but this wasn’t where the night took a devious turn.
No, instead, Roger had changed his motives for the evening; it was no longer about eating every type of pasta on the menu. Let’s just say the forecast had quickly become a whole lot more wet.
We had to start asking ourselves, “Would he finish a whole bottle of Chianti by himself, and what would happen if he did?”
As we were finally being seated, Roger carried the recently uncorked bottle over to the table. But it was inside of a silver bucket. At the time, I thought nothing of this rather unremarkable vessel, and figured it was a good way of ensuring that nobody ruined Roger’s cheap Chianti.
He placed it in the middle of the table, as if it were some kind of trophy. It soon, however, was not the center of attention. We had to divert our focus to what was happening on the other side of the table: Steven, who was fist-deep in a bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo, was about to finish his third bowl of pasta.
“Good God,” I said. “Steven actually is eating his body weight in pasta. This is pretty damn incredible.”
He didn’t have time to answer, though; he was too busy making up for a day of atonement.
While this was happening, Roger’s mission to down the Chianti became a clandestine operation. Nobody was even paying attention because we were too deep into a philosophical conversation, the details of which are a little bit murky. I know it touched on some frequently debated subjects: girls, booze, girls who drink booze, booze with girls on the label, etc.
Yeah, ladies, we were just that awesome.
When there was finally a break in the conversation, I noticed that Roger was making a pretty big dent in the Chianti. Almost on cue, he grabbed the attention of the table, and started to talk about a great idea he just had.
I didn’t even have to listen to the words that were coming out of his mouth because of the look on his face. If you know Roger, you probably know what I’m talking about. Perhaps because he had just finished his fourth glass of vino, he had become a little starry-eyed and had popped his mischievous smile.
“Oh shit, we’re about to do something incredibly stupid,” I thought.
I was right.
Mr. Stranger wanted to leave Olive Garden with the now-finished wine bottle and the silver bucket it had been served in. After a few minutes of scheming, it was time to try and pull it off. We had already reached the point of no return. As we got up from the table, Frank Sinatra started crooning…
“I've got a song that I sing; I can make the rain go, anytime I move my finger” I started to try and rationalize what was about to happen. Well, maybe ‘Ol Blue Eyes will be watching over us. Roger stuffed the bucket under his shirt, and started making his way towards the exit. I have to say, he looked like a fat robot. There was a big bulge where his chest was supposed to be and some not-so inconspicuous parts of silver were sticking out. Simply, we looked like a bunch of dumbasses. Well, dumbasses that were thoroughly enjoying themselves, at least.
Something that was reinforced that night: It’s good to have friends in high places. Or maybe even a few that bus tables at Olive Garden. With our buddy’s help, we were able to make a somewhat dramatic getaway.
When we made it home a few minutes later, a few of us were filled with pasta, others—well, actually just Roger—had a relatively strong buzz going, but we all felt accomplished.
It may have only been worth a few cents, but we beat the Olive Garden that night. We stuck it to the man.
And yes, we had become petty thieves.
A few weeks ago, as an era was ending, I came across that silver bucket again. It had been chilling next to a few books on a bookshelf, picking up a little bit of dust. I went into the kitchen grabbed a ping pong ball (yes, college kids keep ping pong balls in the kitchen), went back in the living room and tried to make trick shots into the bucket.
After a few minutes, Roger joined in on the game; it was just like that early-‘90s McDonald’s commercial with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, except nothing was going in.
We both really sucked, but we kept trying anyway. The whole thing became downright masochistic.
But no matter, that bucket does not now represent the realization of pleasure through deprivation. I’ll always remember it for exactly the opposite reasons, actually.
For one night, no matter how stupid it seems, we could not be denied.
The Circle of 10 had the world on a string.
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