By Erin Randolph erin@dmcityview.com

Mickey's provides a male-heavy Wednesday

Ladies take note: If you're looking for some good odds at hooking up, come to Mickey's on a Wednesday night. Maybe it was a fluke, but the Wednesday night the Bar Fly visited - with Drinking Assistants Brian, Andrew and Chandra - the West Side bar was teeming with men, a veritable sausage fest of single guys standing back, arms crossed, trying to see the girls through the forest of testosterone.

Wednesdays at Mickey's means a $5 cover, $1 wells and draws and $2 bottles. It also means a lot of people and loud music. Generally we despise a cover, considering there are bars with similar drink specials that never, ever charge a cover, but we figure that if we stay long enough, the cheap drinks will help us forget about the price we had to pay to even get through the doorway.

Mickey's Irish Pub, located at 1800 N.W. 86th St., is one of those places where its patrons eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. However, it's also an extremely clean bar that attracts a clean clientele - the kind who spend a good amount of time getting ready for a night on the town. It's the kind of bar where people ask if they can bum a cigarette, and then have the gall to ask for a specific brand (and yes, this happened).

And like every other Irish bar, there are plenty of Ireland-related items on the walls, including pictures of old Celtic sports teams, Guinness advertisements and Irish toasts. But the real treat here is in the bathrooms, where the Xlerators are. Xlerators are hand driers, but this one is like no other. The force of the air blowing from its nozzle is so great that it distorts the skin on the hands much in the same way your cheeks might distort when sticking your head out the window while driving on the Interstate.

Near the women's bathroom, we find 24-year-old Josh playing Silverstrike Bowling. His character is a woman wearing a purple shirt.

"I play this quite a bit," he says. "The women bowl the best."

Perhaps that's true, or perhaps he's just compensating for the lack of female bodies inhabiting the packed bar on this night. Josh says he comes here, on average, about once every two weeks because no matter what night of the week, there are always a lot of people around.

Especially nearing last call, when a crowd of people gathers around a pool table to watch a heated game that's even drawn the ire of a plain-clothed security guard-type, who's hanging around, arms crossed, watching the two duke it out with their sticks and balls. In one corner is Shaun, a 26-year-old in white. In the other: Travis, a 22-year-old in black. On the line: $40 that's been laid on the side of the table.

The two had been playing doubles on the same team. But when they beat everyone in the room, things got heated as they decided to play each other for the title of best ball slinger in the room. Even those watching the game have picked sides, silently rooting for the competitor of his or her choice. So it's no surprise that, when Travis walks away the victor after Shaun's having missed a relatively easy shot on the eight, Brian's a bit irked by the outcome, saying Shaun was clearly the better player.

"That's bullshit is what that was," Brian says. "The superhero lost to the villain."
And on this night depending on whom you ask, evil triumphs over good - at least on the pool table. But as for Mickey's, so long as there is a cover charge, we'll probably find our cheap drinks elsewhere. But, of course, Mickey's will always have people in its bar - even on a Wednesday night. CV

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