It’s not my party, but I’ll cry if I want to.
Last night we went out to celebrate my friend DB’s 40th birthday. We went to the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. The headliner, Kathleen Madigan, was pretty funny. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time.
After the show, we went to this dive Kay and DMX have been to a couple of times called the Hi-N-Dry. The name alone should be a good indicator of the class of the establishment. We walked in, and I could see that it was the kind of bar that had the same ten or twelve drunks every single day. There was this 45-ish blonde chick a few chairs away from me and my mom, and she was LOADED. She kept giving my mom the stink eye, which is not a good idea. My mother might be 52 years old, and 100 pounds soaking wet, but she’s scrappy, man. She doesn’t care about getting in someone’s face who she thinks is causing trouble. So when I looked over and the drunk woman was waving her 1986 frosty pink Wet N’ Wild lip gloss tube at us, I thought for sure my mom was going to reach over and clock her. Instead, she just laughed hysterically at her, and the woman got pissed and went to the other end of the bar.
Later, I looked down at the end of the bar, and noticed our old friend (and I use the term “friend” loosely here) Dick with a bunch of his softball buddies.
Backstory: Dick was engaged to Celestia right after she and Kay were roommates, and right before I started at my company. Dick is a loser. He has a 18 year-old son he’s never seen, and plays softball every night of the week. He’s fun to drink with, but that’s about all he’s good for. Don’t get me wrong - we had a lot of fun with him while he was around, but you can’t count on him for SHIT. As soon as Kay and Celestia got in the big fight of ‘99, I didn’t really see Dick much anymore. Then, after he and Celestia split, I saw him every once in a while at our old bar.
So I pointed Dick out to DMX, and we both wondered why Dick didn’t come over and say hi. DMX went over and said hi, but it was brief, and then DMX came back and just shrugged his shoulders, and said that they didn’t really have much to say to each other.
The guys Dick was hanging out with were complete assholes to the bartender, who was female. She would be in the middle of helping someone else, and they would just start whistling and yelling, and waving their money at her, screaming their order out, with no regard for the fact she was busy with something else.
Kay mentioned that we would be leaving soon, so I decided I was going to go over and say hi to Dick, and give him shit for not coming over and saying hi. I walked up, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “What the fuck Dick, you’re too good to come say hi to your friends?” I said it in a joking way, because this is how we talked to each other. The softball guys immediately started making jerky comments about me that weren’t very complimentary, and shoving him into me. I looked at him and said, “Wow, your friends are great. I can see why you spend so much time with them. Real grown up.” And I walked away.
The worst part of it is that in those brief seconds, those fucking guys got to me, and sent me right back to high school, and every miserable fucking thing that was ever said came rushing back, and I felt about two inches tall. I got back to my friends, and tried to pretend I wasn’t upset, but I couldn’t stop my reaction, so I just said I was going to go outside and wait for them, since we were leaving. I immediately started crying, and felt like a fool. As soon as we got in the car, Kay was nice enough to remind me that I was being a fool, and that I’m an asshole for letting total strangers affect me in such a way. While I agree with her point, her delivery was less than stellar. I felt badly because I kept telling Kay I didn’t want to talk about it, but she wouldn’t let it go, and it was wrecking DB’s night.
I am definitely not proud of the way I reacted, but I couldn’t stop it, either. I don’t like to be one of those drama queens making a scene (that’s usually Kay’s job) in front of others, but it happened. I’m over it now, and I hate that issues from 15 years ago are still so close to the surface. Stupid feelings.
Eventually we got back to Kay’s house, and after a few drinks, I got over it, and we all had a good time.
Me and The Good Girl, especially.
I woke up this morning cursing Tanqueray.
Oy.
Look:
Even taggers don’t like GW.
Comment by Smed
January 22, 2007 @
Assholes always make me feel like I’m back in high school, or more recently, 8th grade. Don’t worry ’bout it. They were dorks.