Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

You can start at the beginning here.

Everyone felt ok this morning. We did the meeting stuff and then had free time. Plus an open bar for an hour later in the evening. But what to do til then? Well if you have someone with Drinking Buddy’s super powers, you scout out a good bar for everyone to hang out at later. And that is what he and Princess Wolfie and myself did.

It took a while, but we found it. We played shuffleboard and had a couple of beers. Once we realized it was getting close to dinner we thought we should head back. But first we need directions so we can let other people know. Bartender lady gave us a cool paper with directions on it, and in the course of talking to her, we discover she was originally from the same town where our company offices are located. So she gave us a shot each on the house for that, plus our efforts to get a good crowd in later.

On the way back, Princess Wolfie was too hungry to wait, so we stopped in a little Mexican place. We got food and another two beers each. This is normally about my limit, but it was spread out over maybe three hours plus a meal. Plus I didn’t want to stop even if I knew better. Peer pressure and all.

We make it back and PW goes to her room for a nap and we should wake her later. DB and I go to the front desk to see if we could make some copies. After some sweet-talking, DB gets the copies made and we head to the open bar hour and pass them out. Another beer here for me. DB and I leave open bar looking for one or two particular people to give invites to. Little did we know, we were walking into a trap.

Maybe it’s because we were a little tipsy, I don’t know, but we see some more people we know and we stop to talk. They’re waiting to be part of some secret ceremony. Seems like it’s some sort of initiation. We’re talking about grown men and women, average age of all of these people, initiatees and initiators, well, saying 45+ would be me being kind. And they’re doing some goofy initiation ceremony. Well DB and I didn’t do a very good job of protesting, because we were quickly shuffled off by a couple of “hosts” to the side bedroom “holding pen” with the other “guests” and sat there anticipating our fate.

I’m not sure if it was me or DB who suggested we sneak out and do…well, something. We decided to hide on the stairs, which had a solid banister that gave us good cover. We could have gone up to the loft and peeked on the ceremony, but we agreed not to. We listened and it was all a bunch of gibberish, you know chanting and stuff. And lots of laughing. Then there is a huge laugh. Silly us, we didn’t realize that the laugh came at the end of the ceremony, the moment of ultimate humiliation. We just sit there, and we get busted when one of the hosts went for the next victim and we weren’t in the holding pen. So they stampede us back in, take another guest, and put a guard on the door. Another guest goes. DB is next. Then DB is gone and I’m last.

These people mostly work in another office. We rarely see them. Of twenty guests and hosts, maybe fifteen were from the other office. But I did work with some of them on that committee a couple months ago. I’m too tired to link. Look around June 20 in the archives. It’s late, I was at the office, then another meet and greet and it’s late and I need to be at the office at 6:00 tomorrow morning. I just don’t want to miss a day.

So anyway, some of these people from the other office do know me. It makes me wonder if they made me last for a reason. And if they did, what sort of reason might it be? The door opened. They had come for me. I was blindfolded and someone led me by the hand. But part of going through the ceremony is that I had to swear an oath not to talk about the ceremony. So I have to stop here.

After Drinking Buddy and I suitably compose ourselves, we call Princess Wolfie. She’s too tired and isn’t going to go. What a punk. Just kidding. But I mean really she’s asking to get cracked on by wimping out like this. And it’s a bummer. But it isn’t going to stop us.

We get there, and get some beers. Lots of people get there, and even Princess Wolfie showed up with some late arrivals. This place has karaoke and dancing. Ok. People first, or drinks? People.

Big Cheese, General Green, Miss Salsa, Little Cheese, Team Leader S, Team Leader B, Miss Lola, Miss Judy, Baroness, Miss World, Young D, Dancing Girl, Mr. Borg, Drinking Buddy, Princess Wolfie. There may have been a few others I can’t remember right now. There were only a couple of people outside our group. So that’s people.

Drinks, I didn’t need any. So I had a couple of beers, a couple of lemon drops, some drink with vodka in it, one or maybe two more beers. Please don’t do this to yourself, my little angels. I did not karaoke. Trust me, I don’t wish to harm my fellow humans. I am awful. William Hung laughs at me. I shit you not. People who deliberately try to sing badly don’t sing as badly as I do. So I did something I have done probably less than ten times in my whole life. I danced.

It was easy at first because we had been doing these kooky dances for team building exercises, so we were doing those. It was kooky. And then people started doing regular dancing, and I started doing my Nutty Professor impression, I mean, I started regular dancing too. Oh, the humiliation. Life sucks. Full disclosure compels me to admit that no one actually laughed at me. No one cracked on me, which my pals would do if I truly sucked. I mean wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what friends are for? And no one even said “Hey you suck!” So I might be exaggerating on the humiliation stuff.

I was chicken. I was half-petrified. But I guess I got through it safely. It was kind of like a benign mosh pit mostly, but every once in a while, a couple might break off and dance together for a song. And this happened with me. And Dancing Girl, who came up to me and started dancing. Look there are lots of ways of dancing to fast songs that don’t involve touching. And then there are ways of dancing that involve a whole lot of touching. Not just the hands, I mean like your bodies rubbing together. Now of course I’m standing there like a tree trunk (foreshadowing, anyone?), sort of swaying as if blown about by gusts of wind. My tree limby arms waving about . I’m saying I’m a shaker, but not a mover. I’m just trying to be clear that the sort of rubbing type body to body shimmy shimmy whatever was her body to my body, not my body to hers. Or, she started it. I just feel like it’s important to make that clear.

I also want to make clear that I am not criticizing Dancing Girl. She’s great. But Princess Wolfie was right over there playing pool, and I’m over here getting my trunk climbed, so to speak. Ok I’m sorry. I wanted to use the line. It wasn’t like that. It was the sort of dancing you see in popular current movies. And did I mention the rubbing? This is absolutely not a criticism of Dancing Girl, who is wonderful, but honestly I always figured the only way a woman would dance with me like this was if I paid fifty bucks first. See that’s a criticism of me. Don’t get confused.

Now look, I didn’t want to ignore her, so I did what I could to participate. I have no clue of the etiquette. I mean, am I not reciprocating enough? Or too much? So it went ok, but I think I erred on the side of caution and didn’t push the limits too much. And we could both tell I was enjoying it. And then we danced an actual slow dance, and I didn’t step on her feet, and it actually looked like I knew what I was doing, rather than just sort of scampering around or some such. Probably it was because she is a good dancer. Now at the end of this song, I got called away, or she got called away. And we never did find ourselves together again. But I had the feeling that she would have danced with me all night.

Of course I chickened out. I mean, what would these people think. You don’t just hook up in a bar filled with coworkers. Discretion is the better part of valor and all that. And who else but me would feel like he was cheating on Princess Wolfie even though he has no relationship with her? How screwed up am I? And if I’m in love with Princess Wolfie, what am I doing pondering a hook up with Dancing Girl? So am I a total douche or what?

It was a really fun night, and a good time was had by all. This whole trip has been great so far. Ok I was a lot more drunk tonight, but I think I was safe not giving anything away. I mean after what happened with Dancing Girl people might think I had a crush on her!

You might ask how great the next morning was, after all I had to drink and my answer…

will be in Day Three, tomorrow.