Only at a Packers Bar.

After a pitcher or three at the Interlude Lounge on Wednesday night, where the stories people chose to tell painted me as a David Spade/Rules of Engagement-esque character (the single guy whose escapades allow his married friends to live vicariously), we headed for late dinner at Danny’s on 72nd and Blondo. Good place.

I’m not sure if it still is, but back in the day, this was the big Green Bay Packer bar in Omaha. That emperor of good taste, AP, used to go there to watch games often. One Monday night, Green Bay played Mike Holmgren’s Seattle team for the first time since he left the team, and I accompanied them to the bar. After Seattle summarily demolished the Pack, AP did AP things and began drinking heavily and engaging in violence. Seriously, drinking so much that you become violent? That’s not cool.

But that was part of the bargain with that guy. If you went to the bar with him, he was going to drink too much, he was going to pick a fight, and he was going to hate you for either intervening and preventing him from throwing a punch or for breaking up a fight. Good times. Yeah, I don’t miss that at all. Nobody needs that kind of “excitement”.

Anyway, on this night, he was being AP and drinking beyond the normal human consumption rate again. After leaving the bar at 1, our Designated Driver (who doubled as Designated Zookeeper and was charged with keeping AP out of trouble) was taking us home. Well, AP decides that to take out his frustrations, he needs to steal a “No Trespassing” sign from the chain link fence in front of an abandoned factory somewhere in North Omaha. He jumps out of the car and starts prying the giant metal sign off the fence. I get out of the car to coax him back, hopefully sans sign, and as I approach AP, I notice the car slowly pulling away.

Nice prank, guys. They’ll pull around the corner and come back, I figured. I had bigger problems anyway. AP was loose.

I managed to calm AP down, but not before he had removed the sign entirely from the fence. It was at this point that I noticed why they had pulled away — a police car had turned onto the street two blocks behind them. It was now following the car. When the cop flipped the cherries on and pulled them over, I ordered AP to drop the sign and run.

Although we’d really done nothing wrong, try explaining that to cops at 1:30 am. Right. So we sprinted almost 2 miles through some shady neighborhoods, down Cuming Street, and to the safety of Creighton’s upperclassman dormitory, where I knew a resident who let us in. I say “I” because the old man couldn’t run that far, and I really didn’t like the guy that much anyway so I just left him hunched over gasping for air a mile in.

Freaking AP. The story with the cop pulling over the car turned out OK, because the driver was a DD and although they ran all manner of tests, he was completely sober and they could not get him for anything other than stupidity.

That’s my last experience with Danny’s, seven years ago. But I didn’t come here to tell you that story. I came here to show you the Specials Board for Ash Wednesday:

So you have a Specials board for Ash Wednesday, and the first three items are club steak, ribeye steak, and prime rib. Then and only then, fourth on the list, is the Fish Sandwich, followed by the Shrimp Basket at #5. That’s hilarious.

You can’t make this stuff up.

A couple of weeks ago at the Creighton-Evansville game, sustained furious clapping left me with a pretty nasty gouge on my arm. See, I get pretty intense at games, and because I prefer to wear my watches one size too big so they can breathe and move around, if you’re clapping (or doing any other hand movements in rapid succession) the watch can cut your arm.

Ordinarily, I just take my watch off during games, for this very reason. Also because the only clock that matters during a Jays game is the game clock — time of day becomes irrelevant.

But on this night, I did not do so, and didn’t think anything of it. Then I was driving home, and at a stoplight, happened to glance down and notice my left shirt sleeve had a reddish hue that it did not possess earlier in the evening. Dammit!

The gouge began the process of healing itself and formed a half-inch scab right where your watch would rest on your arm — and for the last two weeks, I’ve had to go watchless. This is the first time in 20 years that I had gone more than one day without wearing a watch. From the time I was 8 years old, I’ve worn a watch of some sort every single day.

Given the choice between wearing boxers or wearing a watch, my answer might surprise you. Ordinarily, I would sooner go commando than go without a watch. I’m serious. If you go commando, sure, you might be uncomfortable particularly in tight jeans, but the comfort of always knowing what time it is supersedes all other uncomfort. Likewise, for me at least, wearing boxers might be comfortable but with no watch, something just doesn’t feel right.

I understand this is weird, I know you think I’m completely nuts, but its the truth.

You bet.

Over the years, I’ve participated in my fair share of “Hey, lets call Mr. Tights and leave him a message telling him what a great party he’s missing out on!” This pretty much happens once a month, if not more often. So when the favor was returned over the weekend with no fewer than EIGHT calls in my “Missed Calls” ledger and THREE voice mails from 10:33 PM to 12:49 AM, well, I had to laugh.

They’re just going to have to trust me when I say that there was a good reason for my absence and for ignoring the numerous calls. Two good reasons, actually. And we’ll just leave it at that…

You bet.