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feature 37
Volume 102, Issue 7
One Day in RATT Written by Ryan Bromsgrove and Darcy Ropchan
Photo by Dan McKechnie
J
ust as much a part of the university experience as class and assignments, the campus bar is a place where you can meet friends and have a pint between study sessions. But it’s also a place of odd rituals, strange people and potentially disastrous levels of alcohol consumption. The Gateway’s Ryan Bromsgrove and Darcy Ropchan travelled up to RATT last week to see what happens on an average day at the bustling student bar. What they came back with was both hilarious and terrifying. 11:07 a.m.
Ryan: I get into an elevator with six dudes after one failed attempt to push the floor seven button five minutes earlier. Somehow, there’s already a handful of people sitting at tables. Our server seems a little confused that I order only a Diet Coke for now and whip out my laptop instead of joining the other losers in excessive drinking. Little did she know, as I sat in the corner with a stunning view of campus at my back, that I would be here for quite some time.
12:01 p.m.
Darcy: I take the empty elevator up to RATT. As soon as the door opens, a tiny man on a stool rudely asks to see my ID. Doesn’t he know I’m here on important, official journalism business?
12:10 p.m.
Darcy: Order my first drink. A Long Island Iced Tea. I don’t think it’s a girly drink.
12:25 p.m.
Ryan: RATT is now mostly full, with every table taken. Strangely, the table adjacent to us seems to have grown from three people to fully occupying a row of three entire tables. We begin to worry that they might infringe on our territory if friends continue to show up.
12:26 p.m.
Darcy: I can’t be the only person who thinks it’s a little weird that there is a window in the bathroom right behind the urinals. I wonder what kind of sick freaks are watching me right now. I’m so frightened I quickly leave without washing my hands.
12:51 p.m.
Ryan: A strikingly stylish fellow in a bright blue shirt underneath a waistcoat that was a smooth black on the front catches our eye. We’re taken with this remarkable specimen of gentleman and offer a quick wave. It was not returned.
1:00 p.m.
Darcy: If I’m going to sit in a bar and drink all day, I’m going to have to eat. Bar food has historically been terrible, but Ryan tells me that RATT is different. Against my better judgement I order the Number Seven burger.
1:20 p.m.
Darcy: My fears were unfounded. The Number Seven Burger has set the precedent for bar food. You don’t even have to be drunk to enjoy it. Whoever came up
with the idea of putting onion rings on a burger is a genius. As if that wasn’t enough, they have slathering of Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce hiding under the hamburger patty. This burger has two of my favourite things in this world, barbecue sauce and hard alcohol.
2:00 p.m.
Darcy: Some of our friends arrive. This is good — now Ryan and I won’t be known as those two creepy dudes in the corner watching people and typing on their laptops. Our friends scour the bar for empty chairs to steal. I could take my bag and coat off the chair beside me and offer it to them, but I don’t want my stuff to touch the ground.
2:57 p.m.
Darcy: Significantly upping the fashion disaster quotient of the bar, a man in a slim, thin grey sweater sits at the centre table. Not content to look merely a little odd, he also sported the traditional thick blackrimmed hipster glasses, along with a pink bow tie the very opposite of fetching.
3:01 p.m.
Ryan: The table next to us has only continued to grow, and now threatens to engulf our own outpost with the arrival of even more friends of friends. We hear whispers of applied table-space dynamics, and fear their next move.
3:05 p.m.
Ryan: Competing table has now erected a fourth table at a 45-degree angle at the end closest to us, effectively locking us in. They described the resulting construction as a “fortress.” Our biggest concern at this point is getting cut off from the beer supplies.
3:34 p.m.
Ryan: As the fortress collapses, we peer through the now empty space and see that at some point, Ron Weasley himself has graced RATT with his redheaded presence. While in awe, we decide not to introduce ourselves, lest we find out he was merely a student doppelganger, and not the real deal. No regrets are expressed.
3:46 p.m.
Ryan: An intense four-man brohug occurs at the pillar near the centre table. As it dissipates, one of the participants clad in red shorts and a black vest walks confidently toward the elevator. When about to turn the corner, he stops, turns and salutes his former hug-parters. We have clearly witnessed a very special moment.
4:20 p.m.
Ryan: We note that the table next to us no longer contains any of the original people, and has split into two separate groups at this point, with little communication between them. We stop worrying that someone else had the same idea as us, and embraced the kinship we felt with this new evolving organism.
4:30 p.m.
Darcy: I return to RATT after taking care of some business. Back now, and suddenly we have a new waitress. For some reason she seemed to take a genuine interest in Ryan and I. She was always coming by and asking how we’re doing and putting up with our drunken requests for more pitchers of beer and random glasses of water. At first I thought she was interested in us, but then I remembered that I was drunk and she was a waitress working on tips.
6:29 p.m.
Ryan: I order a philly beef, and marvel at how the bread is so soft it almost blends right into the meat. As the sun sets in the west window, the bar is for the first time since midday, beginning to thin out.
7:00 p.m.
Darcy: Even though we’re important journalists, the door man politely informs us that we’ll have to leave because there’s a private function starting at 8 p.m. Even though it’s not the coolest reason to get kicked out of a bar, we still consider it a victory and head to Denny’s, the last refuge of drunken losers.
7:06 p.m.
Ryan: The unbroken chain of friends of friends at the table next to us finally leaves. We briefly consider shaking their hands, but at this point, with last call behind us, we were much too cynical to care about anything but getting out of the place ourselves.
7:45 p.m.
Ryan: We arrive at the LRT station only to hear the robot announce that the train is approaching. Filled with alcohol-bolstered feelings of self-importance, we run down the escalators and make it just in time to sit across from a bearded Doc Brown.
9:30 p.m.
Ryan: After ordering breakfast and a couple of Bailey’s and coffees, we reflect on the day and agree that after having been forced to deal with Denny’s, RATT is actually a pretty cool place. The waitress brings us our bill. We impatiently order another drink, embracing our fate as the biggest failures at Denny’s.