Getting A Bit Old For This

As usual, my birthday resulted in many people coming together to get drunk, act like jerks, and apologize to each other the next day.

Because my birthday two years ago was a total wash because I scheduled it for the evening and was far too drunk to actually remember anything (or stand up) by the time, my tactic both last year and this year has been to schedule it as an afternoon event and just see how long I can keep going before it's advised that I head home.

This year it started around 2pm, and from looking at my phone memory, I was most likely home and in bed around 11 that evening.

And so, the highlight reel:

• I told a small group of friends to get there early so we could do lunch together first, and then I showed up around 45 minutes later. Not like me, but it really wasn't my fault.
  
  
• I was determined to pace myself so I could last longer. Apparently my idea of pacing myself is drinking a coke first, and then heading straight into the beer (and eventually tequila shots) immediately after. Not so effective.
  
  
• My colleague showed up already smashed from a lunch he had been to, and by the end of the night he had physically attacked two of my other party guests for no apparent reason. (He texted to apologize the next morning and I told him not to worry about it. He's English. It's just what they do.)
  
  
• His friend who came with him and managed to give his number to at least 4 of my party guests within a few hours. We're still not sure what his intention was, since he was equally drunk.

Really this is the sort of thing I love about Australia. I can schedule an event for 2pm in the afternoon and people still manage to show up completely hammered.

As for my own drunken stupidity, most people have been polite enough not to tell too many stories. However one of my favorites was how, towards the end of the night, I took the bottle of Absolut Disco that had been given to me as a gift and started to put it in someone's purse, leading to this exchange:

Friend: Zander. What are you doing?

Zander: Putting this away before I lose it.

Friend: Do you know whose purse that is?

Zander: No.


Fortunately, it turned out to be Sesame's purse, and she was kind enough to return it to me the next day when the last thing I wanted to touch was a bottle of alcohol.


Now it's Monday, and we are well into the swing of things in terms of celebrating the holiday season. I've already been to a fantastic free lunch today, where the wine has left me extremely sleepy and rather useless, and this link was just circulated to my office. Yes, that is a woman's body my head is on. I'm over it.