Re-invading Normandy, Part II: That Time I Ended Up at Church, Didn't Take Communion, and Somehow Got Hammered Anyway

I've been actively giving myself nose and eye cancer in the anatomy lab two to three times a week for the past month, so please excuse my lack of regularly-scheduled writing. (Bromaha will get ya like that, don'tcha know.) But as promised, let's take a few minutes on this gorgeous Labor Day weekend to hop in the Wayback Machine and revisit the night of my second time interviewing at Creighton.
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"A WHAT?"

"A fish fry."

"Again. What?"

"You're going to love it. I promise. You'll see."



The first time I interviewed at Creighton and a student host promised me I would love his presentation of the Omaha nightlife, I accidentally ended up in Iowa, having my face bombarded with a new strain of tri-chly-norrhea-philis-erpes by strippers.

So excuse me if I was a little bit skeptical of the enigmatic plan of GingerWithFriendsAndASoul, my new host this second time around. It was hard not to keep my Skept-O-Meter creeping up from a stable "I worship L. Ron Hubbard with absolute devotion" to a fickle "Are you SURE about the Five-Second Rule?"


But hey, I'm almost always game for new, cryptic experiences. So we loaded up the SUV, swung by the local Qwik-E-Mart to pick up two 24-racks of Bud, and went on our merry way. The others in the car, most of them Ginger's M1 classmates, were giggling like schoolgirls in anticipation of whatever this "fish fry" thing was.

Looking on my phone, I saw that we were driving through North Omaha - the very region that, just ten minutes ago, Ginger warned me to not wander through alone, much less live in. I felt the same jittery  excitement Simba felt after being told by James Earl Jones Mufasa to never visit that shadowy place...and then being actively driven in an SUV by Mufasa straight into the heart of darkness.

After a few minutes, we pulled over and, two very large coolers in hand, stomped our way through the snow to the parking lot of Holy Name Church.

"Uh...why are we at a church? More importantly, why are we at a church with children running around unattended? IS THIS A TRAP?"

With nary a word, the group made their way toward the end of an absurdly long line that wrapped halfway around the church. And this was where Ginger finally explained the point of a fish fry.

"Gordo, you naive M-Zero and bi-coastal high-brow snob, welcome to your first fish fry. See, here in the Midwest, where Catholics occupy a significant portion of the population, Lent is kind of a big deal. And during Lent, Catholics don't eat meat on Fridays. Many churches hold 'Fish Fry Fridays,' during which they fry up some fish and some other side dishes and sell it by the plate as a fundraiser for the church. Every single church does this. Now, you're clearly a smart guy because you're interviewing for medical school. What's one of the major problems with holding a Fish Fry in the Midwest?"

"Well...we're in a landlocked state. How good can the fish possibly be?"

"EXACTLY."

"So why are there so many people here? This line's gotta be, like, an hour long."

"And now I refer to Exhibit A: those two coolers full of beers that we dragged all the way out here. You see, the whole point of a Fish Fry isn't to get fish. Like you said, the fish is awful. The point is to stand out here in the cold with your friends or family for a couple of hours and just get absolutely TRASHED."

Indeed, we noticed a large group of young people wearing matching T-shirts that said "OFFICIAL COD DAM FISH FRY TEAM." Done and done.

"That actually sounds really awesome. But...um...there are an awful lot of kids running around."

"Yeah, I think the two boys with their pants on backwards belong to that couple up there pouring themselves Gin and Tonics."

Midwest Winter Lesson #1: When drinking outdoors, make sure you have a beer koozie. If a beer koozie is unavailable, a mitten serves as an adequate substitute. If mittens are unavailable, a sock on the hand may delay, but will not prevent, frostbite on the beer-holding hand.

Guess which hand-warming strategy I had to go with. Answer: Double-Secret Konami Code #4: BOOZE BLANKETS ARE MAGIC. (Okay, it was a sock on my hand, and frankly I couldn't tell if my lack of cutaneous sensation was due to low-level frostbite or from all the happy juice I was guzzling. But ignorance is bliss and I still have all my fingers, so it's all gravy. Or whatever they say in Nebraska.)

As we worked our way through the coolers, however, I noticed that the line really wasn't moving that quickly.

"How long does it take to get some fish? This line doesn't look THAT long."

"Oh right, I forgot to mention this part. You're not allowed to bring your alcohol into the main cafeteria portion of the church. So while we're out here, we just kinda move out of the way so people behind us can go ahead while we continue giving our livers a workout."

"Crap, you're right. No wonder these cars looked so familiar."

"Yeah, we've been moving in the same 20-foot radius circle for the past hour."

And that, my friends, is the only reason why I enthusiastically look forward to my first Omaha winter.