My mom threw a Christmas party this past Saturday and told me I could invite a few friends. Deciding who could come wasn’t too hard; I only have three friends. The real question was whether I’d invite them at all. My mom is notoriously bitchy and distrusting of anyone I bring over, and while she’d never come out and say it, universally hates my friends. This may not have become such a problem if I ever shared details of my personal life with her, but I quickly found that any such attempt at a heart-to-heart would quickly devolve into stock platitudes one can only say with a straight face after years of dedicated Oprah and Marth Stewart Living viewership. To wit: When I first told my mom that I had gotten drunk several times over the course of my world trip and had found it to be an incredible disappointment, she paused thoughtfully and said “You Don’t Need Alcohol To Have A Good Time”.
{She also burst into my room late at night one evening to tell me she had this great idea to sell dog biscuits online, in spite of the fact that she had no college education, no business education, could barely navigate the Internet, and a stupid name (“Pawfect Cookies”). She told me she’d give a portion of the profits (here I buried my hands in my face) to animal shelters, and that the tagline would be “They’re DOG-GONE delicious!”. }
Anyway.
I called up my friends and had them come over. In the interest of anonymity I’ve giving them the same psuedonyms I gave my mom, after she hilariously butchered my first friend’s name: Chad, Jeff, and Christina. Chad and Jeff were the gentlemen I spent a delightfully sober evening with a few weeks back, Christina was the girl I asked out later in the thread. (UPDATE: She shot me down, but found my spreadsheet hilarious and asked to keep it, noting that my Excel skills were indeed very impressive).
Chad is 19. Jeff is 17. I’m 20. Christina is 24 next week. This meant that after Christina ran to the liquor store and “hooked us up”, we were pretty much consigned to one of my bedrooms, which was fine since we didn’t have any plans more elaborate than drinking and watching movies.
Or so I thought.
Around 2 AM, long after the other guests had left I went downstairs to get some food and upon returning to my room found my friends playing Spin the Bottle. They tried to get me to join in, but I refused, saying there’s no way in Hell I’m going to start kissing guys before I start kissing girls. I also pointed out that with a 2:1 ratio of men to ladies, the odds were stacked against them as is, and would get worse if I jumped in. Then Christina said I could kiss her on the lips and I was all HOT DOG because yes, my dearest Internet friends, I am indeed a terrible, lonely 14 year old boy. My friends could sense my discomfort about kissing guys, and even though in my social circle being perceived as a homophobe is worse than being perceived as gay, they still let me get away with kissing their shirtsleeves.
So while I was seeing the most action I’d seen in six years, I also felt very, very stupid, and joked that maybe we should instead play Truth or Dare or Seven Minutes in Heaven. Chad laughed and agreed. “Okay, you’re given one round of Seven Minutes in Heaven you can use on whoever you want.”
Suddenly the stakes were up. We had no idea how we were going to do this, but everyone knew that I liked Christina and even though there was one girl to three guys, everyone knew where this was going. We were on a collision course with clumsy inevitability.
My turn rolled around and I spun Christina. I didn’t have to say anything. She got up and we walked to my other bedroom. I sat beside her on the bed. She looked like she expected me to pounce on her any second. I pulled out my art history book I have onhand for such occasions. and began to read aloud. Now she was nervous and utterly baffled.
“Relax,” I told her. “I’m not going to try anything.”
Given that she turned me down last week, I thought she’d ease up, but now she just looked nervous and even more confused.
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn’t be right and I know you don’t want to do this.”
“…but I’m a drunk girl alone in your bedroom.”
“Right, and I think it’s wrong to molest drunk girls.”
“You know I probably wouldn’t remember it if you did?”
“Yeah, but that wouldn’t make it right.”
She looked at me for maybe a minute.
“You’re so weird.”
And then it hit me. The Saw-style flashback montage. In 30 seconds I saw the previous six minutes fly by, saw mutual friends tell me how much alcohol Christina could consume, saw how little she’d had that night, saw a giant neon sign flashing above my head: SHE’S NOT THAT DRUNK. And just as the sign exploded in a shower of sparks and Boogie Nights references, Chad came in.
“You don’t think I’ll do it?”
Chad and I hated M:iIII, but loved Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Everyone was too drunk to drive so I made accomodations for them in my rooms. I slept in the same room as Christina, who kept saying how bad she felt that I was sleeping on the floor. I knew not to push my luck.
The next morning my mom was appalled to find there were teenagers sleeping in her house(!!!), so she kicked Jeff and Chad out at 11 AM. Christina had already left for work by 9, which was for the best since my mom is positive I had sex with her and has only spoken to me in angry, terse non-sequiters since.
“There’s no such thing as fat-free cheese.”
“How many lightbulbs do you have?”
“Did you ever pay back Grandma?”
And so on.
As for me, I learned my lesson: if a girl’s coherent enough to argue you’re not date-raping her, it’s not date rape. And move out. Seriously dude. You’re mom’s a bitch.