Say then, kids, how goes it? Hope all you folks had a wonderful RamaHanaKwanzamas. And how was your New Year's eve? If you checked in last month you know that mine was somewhat...eventful. I apologize for the brevity of my column and will try to do better in the future. Mr. Grovemiller, my editor, was not pleased. He gave me thirty lashings on my naked backside with a wet leather cat o' nine tails... and then he gave me a stern talking-to about the quality of my work.
Back to the point, though. I had to do a bit of back-tracking to find out some of the details about this past December 31. Here's what I remember:
1. New Year's Eve is also my Dad's birthday. My wife and I go there, eat dinner, and drop off our son, Mack. Even I know better than to take a two year old to a New Year's Eve party. Sure, he says he'll drive now, but you turn your back and he's drinking like a fish.
2. After I do a shot of bourbon with my Dad, cry because it burns, and get slapped for crying, my wife drives us to the party. She says, "I'll drive. God knows you won't be able to." I swear I don't know what she means, walk through the door, and immediately bong two beers to much adulation from the gathering partyers. My wife sighs.
3. My wife finds some of her friends and they calmly sit and talk while I find my friends, bong two more beers, do a shot of tequila and begin to learn a drinking game called "Just Drink Motherfucker!"
 This is where things get shady.
4. I seem to remember not quite grasping the rules of the game at first, then grasping them, then still losing miserably. I heard my wife say, "You shave ears. I'm gleaning Shalom." Later the next day she tells me it was, "You stay here. I'm leaving for home." Whatever.
5. My fellow card players tell me some minutes later we quit playing cards and I failed to notice for an unaccounted number of minutes more.
6. Someone sees me run/stagger through the living room with one beer in my hand and one in each pocket of my pants mumbling something about the bathroom being on fire. Apparently someone had lit a candle.
7. I go missing for some hours. I'm told at first everyone was pleased until someone realized I was last seen next to the case of missing champagne. They eventually found me in the bushes with the case of champagne. I had half a bottle of champagne in my hand and no pants. Someone reportedly screamed, "Sweet Christ, those can't be his balls!"
And that's how I woke up the next morning. Someone was goodly enough to leave the front door open, so I crawled inside, sent my makeshift column in, and called my wife who promptly slapped me either for not having pants or for crying...maybe both. |
