Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Close Encounters

Holla,

I like to go out. I don't do it as much as I used to, but I do enjoy a night of drunkeness each weekend. During the rest of the week I try to remain productive and healthy, waiting for Saturday night to arrive.

The problem with this strategy is that I try to cram my entire week of partying into a 5 to 6 hour time span. Drinking games? Absolutely. Beer bongs? Yes! Shots of tequila, jagermeister, and Fernet? Ummm, sure...

Madison taught me a lot of things. In particular, the great University taught me how to drink. I don't mean that I can consume alcohol in large quantities. Not at all. I'm like a 16 year old girl. Give me three bottles of Zima and I'm good for the night. Give me four and I'm most likely going to end up puking and passing out in my parent's front lawn.

My drinking education was more this: Social drinking doesn't exist, you drink to get DRUNK. I've followed this philosophy for 10 years. It's lead to questionable decision making, white suburban dance offs, and countless memories that I can't really remember.

Last weekend, my roommate and I decided to get after it. We played our customary games of beer pong, baseball, and flip cup, leading to the usual evening of debauchery. We went out, danced, ate burritos, and woke up with a hang over. Pretty typical.

On Monday morning I was sitting at my desk, regretting my lack of sleep over the weekend. My boss came in, said hello, and asked how our weekend had been. Midway through our conversation, a hazy memory struck me. I saw my boss on Saturday night!

Or that's what I thought at first. I continued to look at him, trying to figure out why I was having this feeling. I think that Richard looks a little like a Badger, especially when he's mad.



However, I love Badgers. I cannot equate my boss, who I do not love, with my favorite creature in the world. As such, I will say that he looks more like a weasel.




As I looked at his weasel face, the realization struck me. I hadn't seen Richard at the bars in the midst of my haziness on Saturday night. I saw his daughter.

His daughter shares many of the same characteristics as Richard. She doesn't look like a 50 year old guy, but if you saw them next to one another, you would definitely know that they were father-daughter.

I don't remember much of the encounter, except that I said repeatedly, "I can't be around you right now." I didn't want to reveal my level of drunkeness. The last thing that I need is for bossman to think that I'm a lush.

So, throughout last week, I didn't say anything to Richard about the encounter. I kept expecting for him to say something, but his daughter maintained silence...

Until Friday. I walked into his office to discuss some bills and he said, "My daughter tells me that she saw you last weekend." Guilt immediately flashed across my face. He continued, "Did you not think to tell me about it?"

I didn't know where to go with that. Rather than responding at all, I just made some sort of noise like, "Uhheeeaa..." There was a pause in the conversation before I said, "I thought that I would let her tell you."

He seemed fine with that, making it clear that he didn't care about his daughter's drinking habits. He continued by telling me a story about how he was driving home drunk one night and pulled his car through the back wall of his garage.

We laughed about it and shared some additional drinking stories. We kept talking and I thought that we had moved passed his daughter. As I was about to leave the room he asked, "So where did you guys see each other?"

I responded, "A bar in PB."

He asked, "What bar?"

Hesitantly I responded, "It's a bar called Thrusters."

There was another awkward pause before he said, "Thrusters?"

I responded with another word-like sound, "Eeeaaaaa."

All he said was, "Sounds interesting."

I left the room. If a future employee ever tells me that they saw my drunk future daughter at a bar called "Thrusters", future me may be prone to getting punchy. Thankfully my boss doesn't share the same feelings. Although he may look like an angry badger, check that, weasel, his bark is far worse than his bite.

-More to come...

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