Chances are, you’ve seen him before. Always after midnight. Right when it feels like it’s time to go home. But then something in the air shifts. A joke lands harder than it should. A stranger suddenly feels like your best friend. The perfect lyric cuts through the noise and wakes something up in you. You drift into a bar you never knew existed and catch your reflection in the mirror. You look different now, freer and brighter, ready for anything. The spirit of the after party has overtaken you, and in that moment, you realize...
You just saw Midnight Ricardo.

The next thing you know you are singing karaoke with someone whose name you already forgot,
Eating someone else’s fries.
Debating which 90s movie still slaps,
Taking selfies with a dog that isn’t yours,
Swearing to keep a secret you're 100% going to tell someone,
Trading jackets with a teamster,
Saying “I love you” to an owl and meaning it,
Seeing how far a full charge on a rental scooter takes you into the city,
Starting a chant for a fictional team,
Cold calling a phone number you find written on a bathroom wall,
Road testing a tight five on your Uber Driver,
Forming a band called "Boys II Meh",
Having a heated debate over which Muppet is the most “hireable",
Convincing a stranger you are from the future,
Having a slo-mo gladiator fight using cocktail spears and coasters as shields,
Going bar-hopping with a guy who swears he’s Toby Keith,
Giving a eulogy to a spilled martini,
Stumbling upon a seance,
Delivering a sick burn that will be quoted for decades,
Doing improv at a swingers bar,
Convincing Waka Flocka you’re an A&R rep,
Comforting a bouncer through a breakup,
Witnessing the lead singer of a Limp Bizkit cover band get electrocuted in a parking lot,
Mattress-surfing down a grand staircase with a golden doodle,
Sneaking into an abandoned asylum to “test out the vibes”,
Eating a ghost pepper while reciting Shakespeare,
Crashing a stranger’s wedding and being voted Best New Cousin,
Why are you still reading this? Go outside.
Wandering into a low-budget music video and becoming the continuity error they can’t edit around,
Deciding the sunrise is worth staying up for because at that point, why not?

And when the sun finally rises and the world remembers its rules again, you remember yours:

Midnight Ricardo shows up after dark…

and so do you.