Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Draft #35
2005, we hardly knew yee. This past year came to an end over the weekend and I say good riddens. And sadly enough, the year didn't end without one last embarrassing moment. I was living it up New Years Eve watching You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle upstairs at my sister's party while the rest of the party was downstairs playing Movie Trivia. And no, that's not the embarrassing moment. It all started when a fellow named Bill mentioned to me that he was going to stop and visit another party in town to say hi. Apparently, every year Bill gets invited to this New Year's party and every year Bill never seems to make it. The party in question was being thrown by a wealthy family in town who owns the town bowling alley, among other things. Bill mentioned that the lady who was throwing the party had invited numerous neighbors, bowling regulars, and so on, and so on. Bill even told me, that she told him to invite everybody that was at our party (at my sister's house) to their party. Now I was pretty drunk at the time (10:30pm) and I was feeling adventurous, I believe they call it, liquid courage. Normally, the idea of heading to a party filled with strangers is something that usually makes me cringe or run in the opposite direction, but not that night. Through my years at the gas station, I have probably seen this wealthy family many, many times and after all they had a house account with us at the gas station, maybe they might recognize me. And with the way Bill described the party, it seemed so big that I figured nobody there would notice me.
We all know what happens when you assume something, right? Well for the next 35 minutes or so, I felt like a gigantic ass. This was a family party. Strictly family. Bill and I crashed a family party, on New Year's, with a little over an hour left till the countdown. See when I'm drunk, sometimes the optimism that I'm completely void of while sober, seems to cloud my mind. This optimism led me to believe that a) I am attractive and b) that this party would have numerous, young, similarly attractive females in attendence, and c) that in my drunk state of mind, I would somehow convince one of them that I was interesting.
Bill and I entered the party with a twelve pack of Leinenkugal's Light (Leinie's Light, for those in the know) in hand, and to my surprise there wasn't a single girl in the room within 5 years of me, younger or older, hell their wasn't even a single girl in the room. In the kitchen, was about 6 people playing sheepshead, a guy rocking his baby to sleep in the adjacent room, and the hostess of the party was in the room behind that, serving ice cream behind the bar to her 4 or 5 grandkids who were all decked out in their pajamas. I didn't realize that the lady who invited Bill to the party was 65 years old, give or take 3 years. The rest of the people there must have been her kids who were all in their thirties, and then the grandkids.
So we mosey'd on through to the bar, cracked open a Leinie's and let the extreme discomfort settle in. The only thing I was missing was the dickie, the shiny white shoes, and the RV parked out front. To top it off, not one of the people there recognized me, and I slumped away to the couch near the guy with the baby while Bill joined the others at the sheepshead table. The hostess grabbed the remote and turned the channel to 500 where the movies channels were and told me to find something there. I flipped to the HBO Comedy channel where Lewis Black was doing his standup act. After a few minutes of watching him, I noticed he liked to use the f-word on a semi-regular basis and with the little ones running around, I briefly thought about turning the channel, but then decided to fuck it, I'm already uncomfortable, might as well add to the feeling. At this point, I already knew I was going to write about this moment so I figured having one of the adults tell me to change the channel because of the kids would be funnier than turning it without being told. "Hey you, turn the fucking channel, this guy's cursing a blue streak and we've got kids fucking running around. What are you, fucking stupid or something?" But alas, I don't think anyone noticed.
This party celebrated the east coast New Year on account of getting the kids to sleep sooner, so I actually received a couple of hugs from a few strangers while I was there, we said our awkward goodbyes shortly after that, and it was back to my sister's party. I never really understood the whole New Year's thing anyway. Oh look, it's January, let's hug and kiss. F-that, don't touch me. Yeah, I slept through the millennium NewYear, and you know what I missed, not a damn thing. Signing off, a bitter young man.
Things to do in 2006:
-Get eyes checked by eye doctor (can't read most road signs, that's usually a good indicator)
-Purchase and break-in new baseball glove
-Get a credit card
-Purchase a computer
-Visit the West coast
-Read one book a month
-Keep "never been laid streak" alive (going on 25 years this coming July)
-Break "girls I've made-out with in a year" record (previous record achieved in 2005 with a total of four, bringing the lifetime total to five)
-Perhaps find a real job (may lead to achieving previous bullet point, women like money I guess, those miserable creatures!)
-Find girl who isn't into money
-Punch a horse in the mouth
-Become inspirational
-Dunk on Shawn Bradley in a charity basketball game
-Learn how to change a flat tire
-Boo a young child during their piano recital
Here's to a great 2006! And Happy Birthday to my old man! He turns 57 today! Your present must still be in the mail, pops.
# posted by hucklebuck @ 9:04 AM 
