How To Be Cool, Chapter One

If you read this blog, you probably get the impression that I like to make fun of everyone. That's not really true. I prefer to pick on a particular type of person- the guy who thinks he's cool. If you're a nerd or just plain weird I'll definitely tease you, but it's a good natured kind of thing. If you think you're awesome, I probably hate you. I can spot that guy a million miles away. How? Because I'm him.

We celebrated my old man's (Daddy #2) birthday last weekend, so we had to drive way out to the sticks. That requires getting a car from Zipcar, and sitting on Route 66 for an hour. But I hadn't seen my dad in a while, and he does have a full bar and a ping pong table. So, you know, you take the good with the bad.

On the way out of town we stopped to pick him up a bottle of Maker's Mark, because he had specifically requested booze for his birthday. Lately I've taken to drinking Maker's straight, which I admit is probably not a good idea. Back when I was a kid, my friends had to ban me from drinking any hard liquor because I would become a complete trainwreck. I could sit down with you in a bar and drink 900 beers and get in my car and drive home (I'm not proud of this). But give me a few shots and dear god, there is no telling what will happen. The straw that broke the camel's back when we were younger happened at a party my friend threw at his parent's house when they went out of town one weekend. I had disappeared for a while, so my friends had to go looking for me. They found me in the basement, behind their little bar, open bottle of Crown Royal in one hand, book of matches in the other. I was trying to set things (bar, stools, etc) on fire. The next morning, when I came to, we had a little mini-intervention. We agreed to the ban, and I stuck to it for years and years.

But over the last couple of years I've branched out a bit. It started with gin, and it was harmless enough. But then I branched out to Maker's. It feels somehow more grownup to drink booze instead of beers, like it's somehow more sophisticated. I've been drinking Budweiser for like fifteen years, and I felt like I needed a change. I used to mix the Maker's with ginger ale, but it was always too sweet. So I started chasing it with Budweiser, and I felt pretty cool. I fancied myself the guy sitting at the bar with a beer and a shot in front of him, in some charmingly drunken Rat Pack moment. But lately I just drink that fucker straight. Good times.

We got out to my old man's house and started with the ping pong. In case you haven't heard, I'm kind of a big deal at table tennis. Such a big deal, in fact, that I've asked my mother if my long lost biological father might actually be Asian. No dice.

Somehow my brother managed to beat me the first game, which surprised everyone. Perplexed, I lost the rematch. So I opened a beer. Normalcy returned. I beat him three straight times to save face. He was devastated, and I loved it. I rubbed it in so much that my old man started speaking up in his defense. I was getting drunk from the beer, and carrying on a shit-talking contest against my old man and my kid brother. Even though I knew I would have to face my father, and my motorskills were declining by the second, I broke open the Maker's. My dad poured himself a thimble full, and I discovered yet another way to demonstrate my superiority over the other men in my family. I poured myself a glass (the amount I actually poured is subject to much family debate), and started drinking.

From what I gather, the following things happened next. At least, that's what they tell me. Because I don't remember any of it.

1. My father beat the ever living shit out of me at Ping Pong. It was like it was 1981 all over again, and I could barely see over the table. By all accounts, the asswhipping was truly legendary. My dad actually called the next day to apologize, and suggest I don't drink so much.

2. I somehow convinced my kid brother that I was not that drunk, and he should let me hold his one month old son. My brother has never had a drop to drink in his entire life, and because he is stupid, he let me hold the baby. Apparently at this point I was still fooling my family, because nobody objected to this. In fact, there are reportedly pictures of me doing this, but I've yet to see them.

3. We had to have the car back, so Baby urged me to go get my coat. She found me in the den, face down in the giant chair where all the coats were piled up. This sounds plausible, as I have a vague memory of falling at some point. I also have an unexplained bruise on my shin. Is this why?

4. I told Baby I needed to use the bathroom before we left, apparently to pee. She obliged, and waited by the door. After several minutes passed and I didn't come out, she came in looking for me, certain I was throwing up. I was not. I was, in fact, just standing there, in a daze. She ushered me out.

5. Somehow I said goodbye to my family. The consensus is that I appeared drunk, but not nearly drunk enough to explain what happened next.

6. I got into the passenger seat of the Zipcar, and we hit the road. We were on the highway for about nine seconds before I realized I was going to be sick. Baby then asked if she should pull over, and I told her no. (?) My explanation was that I didn't want her to have to merge back onto the highway. So instead, I just rolled down the window and started heaving.

7. At first Baby didn't know if I was actually throwing up, because we were probably doing seventy and the windows were rolled down. But then she was hit with the smell of whisky and birthday cake, and the mystery was solved.

8. This went on for thirty five miles.

9. According to Baby, only one car full of people pulled alongside us to taunt me. I don't believe this, and I think she's just telling me that to be nice. She was probably actually flagging people down to witness it.

10. We got the car home with about two minutes to spare. They track the time you return your Zipcar by the last time you use your card to lock the doors, so we were up against the clock. We pulled into the parking lot, and Baby asked me if I needed help getting out. I assured her I did not, and I opened my door. I fell, face first, out the door, but was held in place by my seat belt. I began a slow descent toward the ground until Baby made it around to my side of the car to save me, with my face just inches from the asphalt.

11. She dragged my drunk, staggering, vomit-smelling pathetic ass two blocks from the Zipcar lot to our apartment. We thought we had managed to make it home without running into anyone we knew, but the gay couple in the apartment upstairs were coming out of their place right as we got to the front door of our building. At that point I was still in my coat and scarf, which were literally covered in used whisky and birthday cake. What's going on, guys?

12. She opened the door to our place, and dropped me in the bathroom. She then went back outside in the freezing cold, to the dark, scary, inner-city Zipcar lot to clean my puke off the side of the car.

13. She came home to find me passed out in the bathroom on a pile of dirty clothes. She tried to get me to go to bed, but I refused. So she cleaned me up as best she could. I was shaking like a leaf, so she got me a blanket. We have many in the house, but she chose a special one. My ex, the dreaded Osama bin Megan, used to hand-sew quilts (yeah, I don't know either). I have a small, nice one she made years ago that I never managed to give back to her. I've held on to it, because it really is nice and I just don't have the heart to toss it. Baby gave me that to cover up with. How awesome is that? Sweet revenge.

14. At some point in the middle of the night I awoke and crawled into bed. I don't remember this.

15. I do remember waking up at 6am, in the bed, confused. I got up to pee, and found my clothes strewn all over our bedroom. When I got back to the bed, Baby was awake. I asked what happened. She told me. "Really?" I says. "Really" she says. "That's funny, I don't feel sick now" I says. Duh, I was still drunk.

16. I woke up at around 9am, as sick as I have ever felt. I could not get out of bed literally all day. Although it was a Sunday, Baby got up, made me breakfast, and put in twelve hours at the office. Shen she got home at 10 o'clock she found me where she left me, in bed.

17. My hangover lasted through Monday, and was so bad on Monday evening, nearly 48 hours after I stopped drinking, that I could not work out after work.

The entire episode is utterly humiliating. Just complete amateur night. And to have put Baby through everything just makes me feel horrible. She took every single thing in stride though, never got mad or bitched or even complained. Until yesterday, when we got this email from Zipcar:

"After your reservation in [deleted] on Dec. 1st it was reported to us that the interior of the vehicle was left in poor condition with vomit inside the vehicle."

Honestly, could I be any more cool? The asshole guy I make fun of in my blog, the guy who puts his fiance through hell, endangers infants, throws up on himself, forces his some poor bastard at Zipcar to have to clean up after him, the guy with no regard for what an asshole he is, and how he fucks it up for everyone else? Yeah, that guy is me.