How to Fully Enjoy Happy Hour

There are many ways to fill up week. Work, eat and sleep. Those three are pretty standard. I'd rather spend my week doing these three things: Drink, drink and drink. Pretty much every bar offers a Happy Hour, and I'm here to tell you the best way to utilize these hours.

First of all, find a place that's not too crowded. There are places that offer 2 for 1 drinks, free pizzas, ladies drink free. These are all good and fine, but it normally means that you'll be fighting for a place to sit and relax. The 3rd worst thing to happen at bars is having to drink while standing up. The other two things that are worse than that, in a very particular order, are: 1. drinking too much and vomiting all over the place, and 2. getting gang raped on a pinball machine.

Find a seat at the bar, not at a table. Here's the thing about happy hour, the waitstaff doesn't like it. Cheap drinks and cheap food usually means cheap people. The only thing worse to a waitress than a cheap dude is a drunk, cheap dude who, after downing his third drink, refers to her as "My future ex-wife." See, the reason that's funny is because the dude is saying that their marriage will never last. I guess it's hard to maintain a marriage when you're drinking gin and tonics at 3:30 PM while sexually harassing a community college student.

Full disclosure, when I was attending community college, I worked in a restaurant as a server and sometime bartender. On the rare occasion, that I was the "cocktail waiter" during happy hour, the sheer disappointment from the straight male patrons was rampant. I guess Steve and his cubicle mates at Texas Instruments have a hard time enjoying themselves when a penis is so close to the Coors Light they ordered. When you take a seat at the bar, you're never waiting too long for your next round. Plus it's much more difficult to sexually harass a bartender because they're too busy fake laughing at your racist jokes.

Another great way to get the most of your happy hour experience is to not fall for their "famous cocktail concoctions." These are the drinks that are offered "for half price" at happy hour but are actually made up drinks that aren't on menu. Since they're not on menu, there is no price. "half price"is really just "price." Plus they're not real drinks. It's pretty much a watered down daiquiri with a stupid name that you'd only find at a cheesy happy hour. Would you ever order a "Small Smokin' Sombrero" at a cocktail reception? I guess you would if that reception is for the wedding of Willie Nelson to a dwarf named Rosarita.

There are many reasons that happy hours exist, but mainly because it's a great way to wind down after a long day at the office, kick back with a few cold ones, and complain to your co-workers about how your wife stopped having sex with you once she started her tennis lessons with Gustavo. The weird thing is that she's been going to her lessons for two and half years and still doesn't own a tennis racket. Even weirder, the lessons take place at a Rodeway Inn at the intersection of Washington and 123rd street. And I'll tell you the weirdest part, I had no idea that tennis can give you a wicked case of cold sores on your mouth. It happens to my wife every couple of months since she started her lessons.

Well, it's 5:00 somewhere which means I better get to happy hour.