Chuck and I had some friends over last night and after finishing a few pitchers of sangria, we decided to do tequila shots. My outer voice was shouting, “Eeeehaaaw!” My inner voice was crying, “Idiot! No!”
I guess it’s no surprise that I was hung over this morning.
When I got to work, the sun was blinding. I was nauseous and lethargic, so I walked towards the building with my eyes closed. You know those cement dividers? When you trip over them, it’s kind of nice to land face first in the grass. It’s also nice to lie there for a moment and smell the earth. If your coffee happens to be pooling around you, though, that detracts from the moment. So does having your co-worker yell “Digger!” across the parking lot.
Chuck can befriend a stump. I fully expect to be driving one day and see a billboard with Chuck’s face on it and the words “If you’re not friends with Chuck, you’re missing out! Call 1-800-LV-CHUCK.” I, on the other hand, am not so sociable. I don’t initiate conversations on the plane or while standing in long bathroom lines. I don’t care that you like my capris—pee fast and get lost. But wouldn’t you know it? Junior takes after Chuck. Which means that when we’re out in public we make all sorts of new friends. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a sandwich of Barney bread ends, and I’m the sauerkraut filling.
Maybe I should start a mean people colony? I can see it now: a bunch of grumbling, pissy people congregating at an all-inclusive. We could import nice people—have them get up on stage and make polite chitchat—“Oh, Judy, you look so pretty today and that lemon meringue pie you baked was fabulous, blah blah”—and then we could huck water balloons at them. When they cried, we would laugh.
Yah, I like that.
I’m thinking of writing a romance novel. It will be based on a group of friendly and mean people who can’t say no to tequila. Their love of Jose Cuervo brings them together, mostly in horizontal ways (ok, fine, only in horizontal ways). It’ll be called “Heaving loins in Mulletville: How the Worm Won.” I think that has bestseller written all over it. And I have only Keely to thank.
