No Shirt, No Shoes, No Underwear.... no Service

Thursday and Friday nights were absolute party nights in the City of London back back in 2008 when I was still living there and working around Bank Station. During the weekends nearly everything was closed but those two nights a week everyone partied like the world was coming to an end. Little did I know that only a few months later the fall of Lehman Brothers would send shock waves across the city and turn those evenings in pandemonium-like events. All around town nightclubs, bars and restaurants usually booked for birthday parties and retirement parties now suddenly got reservations for a whole new category of parties: Redundancy parties. Large groups of colleagues who had been made made redundant pooled their cash together for one final hurrah and it was during one of these parties we witnessed what one too many cocktails can do for you.

It all started out copacetic. A dinner, a few bottles of champagne and lots of laughing. Once the club opened the cocktails started flowing and one gentleman, dressed in an expensive suit and flashing a Rolex, wandered through the crowd, double-fisting a pint and a Cosmo. In less than fifteen minutes he returned to the bar and ordered another round for himself with a whisky shooter. Within an hour he managed to down three rounds of drinks, which is when he decided that the dancefloor was the perfect place to start shedding his clothes. The tie went first, followed soon after by his jacket and shoes. After unbuttoning his shirt one of his friends tried to keep him from pulling it off, with little success. The result was one torn shirt on the floor and when he finally whipped off his trousers, it was the last we saw of his wallet and phone, which he had been carrying in his pockets. Not quite done, Mr December 2008 decided to gift his Rolex to a lucky winner in the crowd and with his eyes closed, he tossed it through the room, landing somewhere between dancing bodies. But our Story doesn't end here...

Having been alerted by staff and guests security made their way through the sea of people only to find a man stripped to his boxers and socks dancing and singing with a big smile on his face. In his hand he had a new drink, how he got a hold of it, we'll never know and gently but firmly security and friends guided our inebriated party animal to the door. As a parting gift though he broke free and he had just enough time to toss the remainder of his cocktail at an unsuspecting waiter before relieving himself of his underwear (and his final shred of dignity). Unfazed he presented himself in all his glory to nearly three hundred city boys and girls with the biggest look of satisfaction on his face, yelling that he wanted another cocktail.

Still, once the cold of the December weather hit his privates, he clearly decided that having something to cover himself up with was no unnecessary luxury but we all know the rule:

No shirt, no shoes, no underwear... no service.