I’m still nursing a very sore throat from last night’s session. It was a blast in so many ways. We had a barbeque at our boss’ house, but the main event of the night was the whole group of us getting piss drunk on quality tuak, whiskey, gin, bailey’s, wine and port. Seriously, it was that crazy.

And she was beautiful. I hate this.

I made the unfortunate, but happy, mistake of drinking more than I should have. Coke, whiskey and lots of good conversation barely comprehensible. And it was all good, let me assure you. I was able to speak my mind on many things: you know how alcohol loosens your tongue. Fortunately, I was able to maintain a modicum of control over what I said, which means I didn’t say what I really thought on some subjects.

Ha! Talk about fear.. in my previous.. occupation, our bosses would take us newbies out for drinks and get us real drunk. Then they’d fire question after question about whether we liked them, how we found their work etc. It was a dirty way of extracting information, and what we said had real consequences. So we newbies, after having suffered the consequences of our words, learned early on how important it was to maintain silence during these drinking sessions.

I don’t know how to make all of the above sound more believable, but let me assure you that we truly feared for our fates. We didn’t face the prospect of getting the sack, at the time: we faced the prospect of going to prison. So, yes, we were very afraid.

But my god she was beautiful, and she was there with her beau. And I drank myself senseless. No, no, not for dutch courage. I’m sure I was celebrating something, but I can’t be sure now. I woke up with a massive headache and with her on my mind.

Isn’t it funny how the most innocuous things end up being the most important to us all?

I was appropriately funny, I think. We laughed, we all laughed, and I felt like laughing all the more when I saw her with someone else, though it wasn’t remotely funny.