But, when I think of food the first thing that comes to mind is chicken wings and my best friend Dave, who has been my “chicken wing-man” for the past five years.

In order to understand wing night you have to go back a few years to when I moved to Vegas. I got a job working as a cashier at a grocery store and he was a bagger there. One day we were on break together and started talking and we hit it off right away. As we got to know each other better we started to go to lunch at the same time and we would walk to the bowling alley, have a BLT, and we bowl for the hour - well, he would bowl, I would throw the ball down the alley and hope to hit something other than the person on the next lane. Once, when we walked in the bowling alley the girl at the desk, who had come to know us, set up the kiddie guards - I thought that was funny, but not as funny as Dave thought it was.

A lot of our time was spent talking about girls (we were both much younger then and that seemed really important to us). We would talk about all sorts of girls, including one of the cashiers that worked with us who I thought had a down to earth charm that made her attractive. I think most of the guys thought she was hot because they were all hanging around her. I can’t seem to remember her name now, and to be honest, I don’t really remember much about her except that she had huge, gigantic, man-hands. Her hands were like catcher’s mitts. I guess that’s one reason I never really feel under her spell, because I can’t see myself going out with someone whose hands are bigger and more manly than my own - call me shallow if you want, I can live with that.

For the next few years you could find Dave and myself standing next to the grocery story talking about stuff that probably didn’t matter a whole lot, but to us seemed so important at the time. I guess we were a lot like Jay and silent Bob from the movies only without the smoking weed part.

(I didn't say we didn't sing the song)

He went to the military so I didn’t see him for a few years

One day my mom asked me if I would go to the grocery store to help her out. By that time I had gotten another job and hadn’t been back to the grocery store, so I honestly didn’t want to go, but when your mom asks for your help you almost have to help - she carried you for nine months, spent so many hours in labor to deliver you, wiped your ass, etc… how do you repay that and how can you refuse something as simple as going to help with the groceries? I went, but wasn’t happy about it, because I hate shopping and grocery shopping is the worst. The good thing about this particular trip was that Dave’s brother happened to be working at the store and he came up to me and asked me I had seen Dave because he had just gotten back to town. I told him that I had not, so he gave me his number and I called him. We set up a lunch at the local Olive Garden. I was sitting on the little bench waiting for Dave. He arrived in his military fatigues and I stood up to greet him. We exchanged a manly hug and I found myself looking way up at him. He had grown to six feet six inches and with his boots on he stood about six seven or six eight and I was still the same height as when I met him, a towering five feet ten inches tall.

We had lunch and talked about everything that had happened in the time we had not seen each other. He had gotten married and he was happy - we were both happy with the paths life had given us. We decided that we would keep in touch. I know when people say that they don’t always mean it, but we kept in touch. One day he called and told me that his wife had left him so we met up for chicken wings at some pizza place close to where I work. The wings were pretty bad, so we decided that the following week we would meet up at Buffalo Wild Wings for wings. We went and from then on we have been going every week for the past five years.

It started with just Dave and myself, but soon afterwards different friends and family members would go. The people going would change every week, the only constants were Dave and myself. What started as two guys going for wings has now become sort of a family night. Since that first night, Dave has gotten re-married and now takes his wife and two beautiful daughters. I take my family and we all enjoy the evening with good friends and good food.