Saturday, November 1, 2008

Last night we went to a halloween party. Let me be specific here, we went to THE halloween party in Atlanta at literally the last club still open and even at that it's only open for special occasions like a huge halloween party. Some things of note:
  1. I thought I was getting too old for these things. I'm not. There were lots and lots of older people there and I was sad for them.
  2. I knew I was a light weight but my second (and last) drink knocked me off my feet. So either it was drugged (which seems unlikely since I saw it transfer from the bartenders hand to my hand to my mouth in one fail swoop) or she didn't measure the alcohol when making it and probably gave me 2-3 shots worth when really I was satisfied with only one.
  3. There is no way to properly communicate when inebriated. Even when I muster up the remaining brain power to form a complete sentence, no one takes me seriously. I was trying to give someone directions and they just looked at me like I was stupid. But I still remember what I said, and I gave him the right directions.
  4. When it comes down to it, you find out who your real friends are.
Let me get out of the bullets to elaborate on number 4 because this is really important to me. We went to this club last night with two friends, Jeremy and his brother, Chad. Jeremy and Dennis have been friends since he moved to Snellville back in 1989 so we're talking almost 20 years here. Jeremy was one of those friends that you went up through school with. He lived down the street so they rode the bus together and stayed friends even while Dennis moved to KY and then when he came back to Atlanta to go to school, Jeremy was his room mate for a year. Well when Dennis and I got married, Jeremy and Dennis had a huge falling out. This happens often when people get married, but this particular one was severe. Jeremy made a few comments to Dennis about me being his ball-and-chain and stuff like that and Dennis cut him off. So about a year or two ago, after what really only seemed like an issue with schedules and life and nothing personal, Dennis ran into him in the city and they started talking again. He had become one of those friends that you like the idea of. As in, I know there is cool somewhere down there so I will continue talking to you but every time I do, I'm reminded why we're not really friends anymore. In adulthood we all often become something different than what we thought we'd be. Sometimes we grow so much, we are better than we'd intended. And sometimes, not so much.

Anyway, Dennis invited Jeremy and Chad to go with us because these were two guys that could use a night out. By about 2am, Jeremy and Chad had found two sisters. As I recall, they were pretty good looking but it was dark and I was drunk so who knows. By 3am, the girls were ready to go home and Jeremy and Chad, who had not had much to drink, were more than obliged to take them as they were in no condition to drive. The guys walked them out to the car, and this is the part that is awesome. With the prospect that they were going to go back to Jeremy's place (which was very close to the club), Jeremy left the girls and came back to get us. Dennis and I had separated from them earlier in the night to let them be with these girls and Jeremy came back into the club to make sure we could drive before he left. Since we could not, he let the girls go and drove Dennis and I around until Dennis was ready to get behind the wheel. The awesome thing here is that Jeremy honestly let that go fo rus. We didn't ask him to. We certainly could have sobered up either there at the club or in our car, but he didn't want Dennis to think he was ready and not have a third party make sure he was. Now, let me go off here a little and say that Dennis would never ever put either of us, or anyone else in danger. And I believe he would wait long after he felt ready before he would ever drive. He is a very concious drinker and had been careful to stop in time to sober up. That being said, it was still incredibly respectful of Jeremy to keep an eye on him until he felt like Dennis was ready, too. It was honestly a really awesome thing for him to have done and I am eternally grateful that he took that time to be sure of our safety. Had we needed to spend the night at his loft, I know he would not have hesitated to let us have a key or drive us over there himself.

1 comment:

michelle said...

I must say that I think about this concept a lot--liking the idea of a friend, in theory. I have friends that I have had a falling out with and then I am always completely guilt-ridden. I always think that I am to blame, but after having tried to rekindle one of these friendships that ended badly again, I was reminded... I was right the first time.