Those of you who checked my Twitters over the weekend (one person - Hi Chelsea!) may have seen that the beer bet was ended this weekend. The picture above, documenting our first sip after 27 days, confirms that this is in fact true. It was a mutual decision to end the bet…No one lost, no one won. Anti-climactic, I know.

There were a number of small factors that led to our decision to kill the bet early, among them being it was clear that none of us were going to give up (even though Sachin and Rishi had predicted a quick loss from me, slamming 100 bucks on the table, and saying “I’m out” a la Kramer) and THE FACT THAT IT WAS THE STUPIDEST IDEA EVER (to be fair, it was a great conversation piece).

But the biggest factor in us breaking the seal, so to speak, was the logistics of concluding the bet as originally planned. On Friday Rishi reminded us that he had just started traveling for work. He was going to be out of town all of this week, and wanted us to push off the first beer celebration until Friday when he returned. Sachin was indifferent, saying one or two more days wouldn’t hurt him. I was adamant in my refusal, saying we had already waited too long. If we wanted to wait for all of us to be together, why not just end it now? Friday night ended without resolution.

On Saturday, I met up with friends at Professor Thom’s to watch the Michigan game. Again, Sachin and I sat there drinking Diet Cokes, unallowed to drink beer and too hungover to drink anything else. Rishi showed up mid-game, and pretty quickly our conversation turned back to how to conclude the bet.

Rishi argued again that we should wait. We had waited so long already, why would Sachin and I want to ruin the celebration by leaving Rishi out of it? It would be much more special if we all had our first drink together. Stupid sentimental crap like that.

Fortner, who was in town over the weekend for the New York leg of the Fortner Farewell Tour, started babbling in the background about how this would be the last time he would get to drink with us before moving to London and how he wanted it to be special and that the only way that would happen was if we all had a beer with him.

Sachin and I debated the pros and cons of waiting. Yes, it was only a couple more days of waiting, but we had already waited so long. It wasn’t fair to make us wait because Rishi’s job took him out of town. Where were his priorities? Ultimately we decided that we would try to wait but would not be held to a new deadline; that is, we wouldn’t make any specific plans to end the bet without Rishi, but if we happened to go out for drinks on Wednesday or Thursday, we would be allowed to have a beer without penalty.

This side agreement between Sachin and I was ultimately what I think won Rishi over (though Fortner will argue it was all him). We were all together in a beer drinking situation, so the moment was right, and the chance that Rishi would be left out of the end of the bet was too much for him to handle. He finally relented. We stood there for a few minutes trying to digest the decision. We did a silly three way hand shake thing to make it official (and also ensure that any funny business, such as one person not actually drinking a beer, would not be valid).

We decided the only way to celebrate was by having a chugging contest, with the loser buying a round of shots. We each took an initial sip (pictured above) to wet our lips and savor the moment (I had to set my beer down because my knees nearly buckled), and then pounded the beer.

The sad thing is that the beer was kind of warm, and the act of chugging a beer after so long was nauseating. For a few moments after finishing (btw Sachin lost and still owes us shots), we all felt like we were going to be sick. But eventually our stomachs settled and we drank a couple more pitchers while watching Michigan lose (@#*&^^#@#*$^!!!))

And then we went to Plug Uglies, where we drank more beer and played shuffleboard. And later that night we went to Bayard’s Ale House and all was right with the world.