Punch me, I'm Irish!

So, yes... I have been in a bar fight. Once. A few years ago, on St. Patty's day (of course) I had gone to the annual parade in downtown Lawrence, KS - my old college town. I was still in school at the time and my boyfriend (my old boyfriend, not the awesome man I have now) was visiting me from England. He was a Brit, and was completely confused as to why all us crazy Americans would celebrate St. Patrick's Day. He was also in the British army, so he had his own ideas about the Irish. However, I think he kind of got it after I explained to him that I was Irish, English and German... and that most everyone else in the U.S. had mixed heritage as well. Plus it's an excuse to drink all day, and that was really the only explanantion that he needed.

Anyhoo, we drank. A lot. We started at about 11:00 that morning when the parade began. By 8:00 that night, we were still drinking at this great little corner bar called the Replay. I love that place. We were also with my friend Kayla, who (at the time anyways) was a fabulous drunk. She was sure to black out every time you went out with her. On any given night, she may or may not have also needed someone to lug her like a sack of potatoes out to the car. (I swear, I have seen more than one of my friends throw her over their shoulder at the end of a long night, and carry her drunk ass off.)

So, obviously, Kayla was wasted. She was in retarded mode by that point in the evening. And she was "hitting on" a guy at the pinball machine. More like "slurring on" but whatever. She came back to the table and sat down with us. We all forgot about pinball guy and continued drinking and talking.

About 30 minutes later, a very tall, rail thin girl came over to our table randomly babbling about some ho and her boyfreind. Blah blah blah. We didn't know what the fuck she was going on about, but we were all basically trying to console her and get rid of her. She walked away, only to come back minutes later and get in Kayla's face. Apparently, pinball guy was her boyfriend and Kayla was the ho. At this point, Kayla was slumped over on the table, half passed out. So I stood up (mind you, I'm about 5'1" and this chick is 5'8" or so), faced the girl and told her that my friend didn't care about her skanky ass boyfriend. "Look at her!" I yelled, gesturing to the sleeping Kayla. "Does it look like she wants him right now?"

So how did the girl react? She spit. In. My. Face. I felt a wave of shock go through my entire system right before I blacked out a bit. I have heard the term "blind rage" before, but this was the only time I have ever experienced it myself. As soon as the spit hit my face, she ran. The rest of this story will be relayed to you as explained to me by my friends. I set my mug of beer down gently on the table. I wiped my face and looked at my hand in shock. And I took off running, right out of the bar. Looking for a tall, skinny bitch with long, straggly red hair. When I spotted her from behind, I jumped on her back. We were in the middle of the street. We rolled around with the basic catfight moves, pulling hair, using our nails, pounding each others heads into the street, etc. Somehow we made it to the sidewalk. A crowd gathered. My boyfriend had caught up to us, and he snatched the girl off of me. He held her, up against a wall, and told her that if she promised to leave me alone he'd let her go. All the while I was screaming bloody murder about kicking her ass while she was crying. She promised and he let her go. I let her get about a half a block away before I chased her down and tackled her again. This time I was the one who got held down while they let her make her escape.

The next day I felt like shit. Don't ever get into a barfight if you can help it. The facial bruising and scratching is not worth it. And it really is hard to live a story like that down.

However, I do know that when faced with the fight or flight reaction, I will not be a pussy. I will fight. For some reason, I think that's good.