I skipped a call for more beer and fun times tonight.

My reasons border on, get this:

  1. the ethical considerations of imbibing too much beer, then stumbling home half-senseless,
  2. my delicate condition after Wednesday night, and
  3. an understanding that you can’t look for meaning at the bottom of a tall glass, dammit!


In other words, I had no real reason to refuse, except for the niggling feeling that if I did in fact rush off for yet another session of booze and blaring music, I’d be having too much fun for my own good. That and my boss has a declared agenda involving me and a long lost friend who so happens to be ravishing, almost always alone and almost always drowning her sorrows.

It’s not that I’m not feeling particularly messianic, mind you, it’s just that lately the people around me are getting obsessed with hooking me up with someone, anyone. My libido could use the tune-up, yes, but jesus christ! I mean, come on!

Which brings to mind Wednesday night. Ok, so we were all howling like banshees, alternating between getting righteously stoned and horribly wasted; yes, we were leaping off wooden seats that looked particularly fragile; yes, I had to endure a 30-minute lecture from an inebriated colleague on the virtues of patience and a good work ethic; and yes, we laughed at this bunch of ladies who were having too much fun (oh, the hypocrisy!).

It was a great night out, but see, I don’t remember much of it. ‘Cept for getting manhandled and given bear hugs from adults I would, on normal days, call colleagues and rejecting even more hugs from strange women from across the Straits of Johor.

A clarification: I’m not god’s gift to women — god and a dozen other deities can attest to that, and if that doesn’t convince you, then my rotten luck should at least present a fairer interpretation of my plight viz. women. (read: I really do suck, but enough bad personal reviews, eh? — ed.)

However, when faced with the prospect of hugs and kisses from the proverbial Wicked Witch of the East, my body functions on auto-pilot and my legs won’t be able to keep up with my screams of horror.

Which, I’m ashamed to report, happened. I didn’t really scream so much as shriek, and I was off racing for said inebriated colleague’s car, aiming to put as much distance as possible from that horrible wreck of a woman. I remember reaching his beemer, breathless, then diving into the passenger seat and staying resolutely face down till we were out of range.

Later over tea it was decided that I was, indeed, a bastard.

We shared the night with two new arrivals, courtesy of one of my colleagues. Beautiful ladies, really, but I spent more time watching the female vocalist gyrating across the stage, to be honest. The live band was good, the whiskey even better and I didn’t want to be seen anywhere near said ladies for fear of being labeled a paedophile (they looked awfully young), whilst my other mates made in-roads.

Which isn’t to say they weren’t, um, useful: over tea, one of the boys decided dutch courage meant the wherewithal to start boasting about the various cats he keeps at home, the dog he doesn’t like, and the mysterious constellation of gravitational forces with coefficients of drag (I kid you not). Needless to say, this sort of chest-thumping received short shrift from the less sobber (me included) and it ended in a semi-riot of sorts.

No, no tossed glasses and typical bollywood stares and pronoucements; we were more civilized, so we proceeded to insult each other’s football teams.

Ugh.

As we stumbled off into the night, Prem slung an arm around my shoulders, chuckling. It was a moment of absolute clarity, a shared epiphany as he looked at me, smiled and repeated our club’s oft-quoted motto: “you’ll never walk alone”.