Feet Don’t Fail Me Now

So who was that crazy bald guy dancing like a fruitcake at last night’s holiday party?

Oh, yeah, that’s right…it was me.

Yes, once again it’s that magical time of year when I promise to go to my company’s Christmas party for one drink and a free dinner and end up drunk and way too disorderly on the dance floor.

Thank God I had today off so hopefully my awful antics will be old news by the time I return to the office on Monday.

Yes, it really was that bad. For you see, I was…that guy.

You know that guy, right? The guy who drinks too much and acts like a loon, while people point and laugh at—not with---him? That was me last night.

I’m praying there’s no video of this fiasco, but the jails and psych wards are full of people who have prayed for the same thing.

And I wasn’t even planning to go to this year’s shindig at Chelsea Piers. All this relentless holiday cheer has me charging up my inner Scrooge and practicing my “bah, humbugs!”

This ongoing grief with my back has taken so much of the fun out of my life. If I can’t go to the gym and work out then I don’t think I have the right to party.

Plus I had the day off and I didn’t feel like schlepping into Manhattan, especially since I’d have to re-schlep into the city the next morning to start physical therapy. How it would look if I showed up hung over for my first session?

Well, I kept my mirror-gazing to a maximum minimum today but I didn’t like the little I saw. And as I recall bits and pieces of my beastly behavior at the office hoedown, I’m starting to think that maybe amnesia isn’t always a bad thing.

I finally decided the party would be worth the goddamn schlep, but I was determined to stick to my one-drink-and-go plan. I wanted to be bright and chipper for the next day’s well-intentioned torture.

However, that strategy lasted about as long as Frosty the Snowman in a microwave.

Somebody Stop Me...Please!

The evening started out fine. I saw a couple of my coworkers, ate a nice meal, and chatted with people from other divisions. My company is massive, with offices all over the world, so it’s fun talking to folks who could potentially be from anywhere on the planet.

I had a glass of wine with my meal. I had some more food, so naturally, this required another glass of wine. I had one oatmeal cookie for dessert and I needed something to wash that down, so I went for another wine. Tis the season...

The dance floor seemed so dead for so long that it looked like I’d be heading back to Brooklyn with an unshaken booty.

Then a few ladies stepped out to dance…then a few more people came on…I had another wine…more people came out to dance…then I finally got out there…and the rest I am trying to forget.

I whirled, I shuffled, I spun around, and wiggled it just a little bit too much. As the evening progressed, I regressed—back to Java Man.

Dancing is a miraculous act, a fantastic mixture of the sacred and profane. I can almost understand why nutzoid religious loons ban dancing because it makes people feel so happy, so liberated that they gleefully ignore nutziod religious loons.

I remember thinking that I had reached a place where either God or the Devil could take me at that very moment—and I didn’t care which one did the honors. I told you I was wasted, right?

“You have a lot of energy!” one of my dance partners said just before she left.

Yes—and it was all manic.

The memories get hazy after that, but not hazy enough. I feel so foolish today and I think it’s a five-hanky shame that we don’t have a Witness Relocation Program for mortified cubicle monkeys.

All right, it’s time to buck up. Everybody acts silly at this time of the year. People have other things on their minds besides my wicked ways. I’m going to dry out, sober up, and move on.

I’ll walk into the office on Monday morning with my head held high…and a false nose and glasses on my face.