Christmas Party Disaster



Where to begin?



The party was actually a very bad experience.



There were three people there that I did not know too well or at all; Mike (who came with his three young children), Steve the magician and his roommate Eddie. People started showing up at around 5:15 or 5:30 and we all were having a good time. Mike was invited by Rhonda, who is my across the street neighbor. His two daughters seemed very well behaved and Mike seemed OK, too. Sometime later Steve showed up with Eddie, whom I did not know. I have met Steve several times briefly and decided he was a good guy.



As the evening progressed a few things happened; Mike got extremely drunk. Eddie got extremely drunk. Steve was drinking but not extremely drunk.



The kids' gift exchange game went very well and then it was time for the adults. In the middle of the adult's game Eddie interrupted us to give a long, rambling speech about how he and Steve did a show for under-priviledged kids that day. Eddie must have thought we were just sitting around socializing and not playing the game. We finally booted him out and then started the game again.



A little while later he came back and interrupted again. "Who wants a magic show?" "Eddie, we're playing the game. Get out of here." I said. He looked at me and actually said - I mean he said this to me - "You have 10 minutes."



I should have kicked him out right then but I said, "No, we will finish when we finish. Get out of here."



Additionally, Don, the across the street and up one house neighbor was shit faced drunk and came in to watch the game. He tried to sit down on a chair and ended up missing, falling off and catapulting his drink all over the floor of the entry way (which fortunately is tiled). Gretchen and a few others were gracious enough to mop up for me.



After the game finished they put on a short magic show for the kids while I paced the house freaking out. A couple of folks talked me down and I was OK after a while. The magicians brought over some of the animals they use; a rabbit and a duck. After the show was over Eddie decided to bring the duck into the house; it got away from him and ran around the downstairs area and crapped on the floor and maybe the carpet.



When I saw that I went out to Steve and told him, "Eddie brought the duck in the house, it got away and crapped on the floor. Pack up your shit and both of you get out of here."



It was this point that Linda said to Mark, "Let's get out of here." How prophetic.



At some point later I all of a sudden heard a guitar playing. By now both Ed and Mark had left, so I knew it wasn't them. I go into the music room and see Mike playing my guitar. Mind you, I hadn't given him permission to play my beloved Martin.



I went into the backyard and told Floyd, who is strangely enough the one guy I relate to the most in the neighborhood (he's a retired Army Intel guy and is now a US Marshall for the downtown San Diego courthouse) that he was playing my guitar and I wanted him out of the house and sent home. His kids were still there and the oldest knew her Daddy was not behaving well, I think. The few around me agreed that he was drunk and should probably go home, so Floyd went in, took the guitar from him, brought it upstairs and put it in my bedroom closet and then escorted him and his daughters home. He was acting the asshole because instead of just going home with his tail between his legs as any real man would do he tried to talk his way out of it with me, which only served to cement his reputation as an asshole even more. His story was the Mark had shown it to him (which was fine, Mark has carte blanche with my gear, as does Ed) and so he decided to play it after Mark left (which Mark would not have allowed at all).



So, Floyd came back and I breathed a sigh of relief.



Less than an hour later Mike came back with one of his guitars and asked me to scratch it with his car key. I was getting furious and told him to get out again. This time my neighbor Avi escorted him home, but only after a fair amount of drama and a chair tossing scene by me since I was so incredibly angry that this guy would not go away and stay away.



People started leaving the party and soon it was down to just a handful. I was showing Katy, one of the neighbor women the living room photos and talking about them and the ideas behind the designs of the house when Mike came back in, unannounced.



I wanted to deck him at this point, just flatten him, but Katy intervened and almost literally shoved him out the door (and locked it behind him).



What I don't get it how supposedly more mature and responsible adults can act so badly in front of their kids. It is that element of "suburban angst" that I really really hate. It seems like so many people are not happy with themselves or their lives, but they keep a lid on all of it until one night it all comes out at once.



Sometimes it just amuses me but for whatever reason last night several people decided it was time to get their disappointments and unhappiness off their chests and exposed to everyone around them.



Mike thinks he was kicked out of my house for playing my guitar. He wasn't, he was kicked out for behaving badly and unpredictably. He didn't figure that out last night; maybe he has figured it out now. I hope to God I never see him again, at least I hope he doesn't come back down here one more time and attempt to irrelevantly explain himself. I felt bad for his daughter but maybe she'll take some sort of life lesson away from it.



Eddie was just an insincere showbiz creep. I can handle those as long as they don't expose the insincerity and selfishness too obviously. But his "Bring in the duck and let it loose" maneuver sealed his fate. And since Steve brought him Steve had to leave with him. It's my understanding that Steve chewed Eddie out there in the back yard after I told him what Eddie had done but too late and I don't care. Jenifer told me this morning that Bob told her that Eddie was dedicating vodka shots "to the children." He was also apparently hitting on Linda all night long, too. What an ass.



And Steve has been wanting to get hired at the local elementrary school which hasn't happened for a few years. The neighbor who was the former PTA president that hired him no longer has a kid at that school and the current PTA VP, another neighbor, won't hire him. He did this show as a way of getting her to hire him; I doubt that will happen now.



Don is a decent fellow - sort of - but he was just falling down stinking drunk and I personally don't get that at all.



As I explained to Katy later I can't afford to have these sorts in my life; I am too dependent on my family, friends and neighbors to allow jerks, creeps and asses to insinuate themselves into my life. I do not suffer fools gladly and I, as long as I have lived on this street anyway have NEVER behaved that way in any of my neighbors' homes. I find it inconceivable that I would get fall down stinking drunk, spill my cup contents all over the floor, bring wild animals into their houses or go through their prized possessions and examine, use or otherwise touch them without permission.



I compare these parties to the ones my friends in OC throw. They and their hipster friends don't seem to have any problem eating and drinking, conversing and otherwise socializing and NOT tearing the house apart. My house is an absolute wreck. It floors me that grown up people can behave in such bad ways. I am very glad my parents went home when they did and did not see the ridiculous spectacle these so-called adults created.



I guess I'm just uptight and uncool.