Comments on an evening spent drinking:

It takes more than three adult males to safely consume two pounds of chicken wings with celery and carrot sticks, a basket of kettle chips with blue cheese and a huge plate of nachos with chili. I don't know what the exact number required is, but it's more than three. Which is not to say that three men can't eat all of the above, only that they are playing fire with their gastric health if they do so.

Female boxing would have a whole lot more credibility if contestants didn't dress like it was prom night.

When considering how cute your waitress is - keeping in mind that few young women's appeal can be harmed by a tartan skirt - and wondering what it would take to get her into a compromising position, it is important to remember that you are happily married and wish to remain that way, no matter how attractive the idea seems at the time.

By the way, even if your waitress isn't particularly attractive, she will still probably be the best-looking female in the bar on a Monday night. Unless, of course, you are at a strip club, where the waitresses tend to be older women whose clothes should stay on even when alone at home in the dark.

When telling a story in a very animated fashion, with hands flying around and enthusiasm bubbling over, always remember to move your beer first.

After you spill your beer, any chance you thought you had with the waitress is clearly gone when she offers to bring towels to clean up your mess and not a replacement beer.

There is no movie or TV show or standup comedy routine so good that it can't be improved by sharing it with your friends, even in a bastardized version, over a few beers.

Three men together for an evening will spend a disproportionate amount of their time discussing subjects that involve, in one sense or another, sex. That's just the way it goes.

They will also discuss sports, but it is unfair to somehow hold the one basketball fan at the table accountable for his team's poor performance. He's hurting, too, you know.

At some point in the evening, everyone will be the target of a barb or twenty. It is the spirit in which you receive these jabs that determines whether your friends will wish to drink with you again.

You can talk politics in a bar, but why would you want to?

It's bad form to get too picky when sorting out who pays what on the bill. Just ballpark it. On the other hand, it's usually the guy who consumed the most who becomes irritated by attempts at a too-exact calculation, and the guy who consumed the least almost always gets screwed. But it's still bad form.

Bars will not accept paper money that has the end bitten off, no matter how cleanly and even if you tell the waitress that it came out of the machine that way. In the end, your waitress is a businesswoman trying to make a living, no matter how good she looks in a tartan skirt.

That cute blonde on the subway isn't looking at you. And even if she is, see comments above about being happily married.

The same goes for the brunette.

That older woman is looking at you. But you don't care.

It is important to have your wife's consent when you spend an evening drinking. That way, she's sympathetic when you tell her you ate too much, and she's willing to drop your beer-splattered suit at the cleaners the next day. Now that's love.

Tums are a perfectly appropriate breakfast food. I believe it takes 16 of them to fulfill the daily recommended allowance for calcium.

And, finally, no regrets. Even if your head and stomach hurt, even if you really do wish you had taken a shot at the waitress, even if your wife wasn't completely on board with your evening's libations, even if you are completely unproductive at work the next day - unless you have a drinking problem, you just don't do this too often, and the rest of the world should cut you some slack when you do.