Going Back to Your Hometown

Believe it or not, there is a national holiday coming up soon and no I'm not talking about Khloe Kardashian's birthday this weekend. I'm talking about the U S of A's 244th birthday in about a week and a half. Debatably the best drinking holiday there is, right up there with St. Patrick's Day. Everyone loves cracking a cold one and irresponsibly lighting off unnecessary amounts of Fireworks until 3:30 am. 

If you're like me, you moved (far) away from home post schooling, but holidays are always a great time to go back home, see some family, and absolutely dismantle your hometown bars with your old pals. There's a lot to love about going back to your hometown, I'm gonna dig right into it and give you some of my personal favorites that I'm sure apply to you. Away we go

I alluded to it earlier but the first great thing is ripping up your hometown bars. One of the better feelings in life is getting to see the inside of the building your mom told you she had to go in to "get a few things" before she came out smelling like a combination of a distillery and Marlboro Menthols before safely driving you and your friends home. It's great to be able to walk in there and continue the family legacy of getting absolutely thrashed (responsibly). Somehow, you always manage to try and show off all the money you don't have (we'll touch on this later) and buying the whole bar shots at least twice and leaving with a $300 bar tab on $2 Miller Lite night.

Sticking with the theme of hitting the town, next awesome thing is seeing your high school teachers at the bar. Seeing one of the "cool" teachers from high school is fun as hell, it's a lot of fun to sit there and crack beers and share some laugh about the past. But what's even better is running into one of the "boring" teachers and finding out they're an absolute psycho maniac. It's like when you're a freshman and find out the starting QB on the varsity team rips heaters in between meetings and practice. It's a shock and an eye opening experience. When I say this teacher is a lunatic, I mean it. This teacher is probably bitching about students, buying bottles of Don Julio to pass around, ripping cigs with his ex-students outside, and going into the bathroom a few times and walking out with a little pep in the step each and every time. You have to be careful with this one before you end up 2 1/2 away waking up at the Ho-Chunk Casino in the Wisconsin Dells with them.

I told you we'd talked about this one later; and it's showing up wherever you are acting like the big swingin' dick wherever you go. You're home for 3 or 4 nights, time to go balls to the wall and show this town who's boss. Pretty much treat this like Peter Griffin at the high school reunion. Anything short of a secret agent astronaut millionaire with a cowboy hat from space means you're not exaggerating enough and you're still a huge loser. 

Getting to get a home-cooked meal from mom. This especially applies as a young person like myself. Believe it or not, there are better meals out there than buttered noodles battered in parmesan cheese and frozen chicken tenders washed down with a natty lite. It's actually been so long since you've see a vegetable you forgot they existed. Getting a nice home cooked meal is always good for getting a nice tickle in you're ever minimal soul.

Having a sleep schedule that mirrors that of a newborn child. If you're going home for a bit, chances are you're off work or any other responsibilities, this means you're sleep schedule is going to go crazy. It'll be like summer and you're 16 again. Staying up late eating an entire bag of Cheetos Puffs, watching entire seasons of shows in a night, is the norm at this point.

Getting you're laundry done for you, this especially applies in you're early 20s. Look, laundry sucks. It's quite easily my 2nd least favorite chore right up there with the dishes. The folding, the putting away, the "oh fuck wheres my sock", it all stinks and I'll always bitch about. There's just something special about having someone in the home do this for you and still manage to have all your socks together. 

Getting mangled at your hometown bar again, 3rd night in a row, awesome.

Seeing your buddies from high school. This becomes a real "never forget your roots moment". You could ACTUALLY go on to be a secret agent astronaut millionaire, but if you were the chubby kid in high school who ripped his pants at homecoming, you're going to be that forever and you will never hear the end of it. They say you can't outrun you're past and this is example 1A of that.

While you might get sick of being home after 72 hours, but it's always important to never forget where you came from.