Like many of you, I've had my fair share of memorable New Years Eve parties. Festive parties filled with gaiety and romance: the kind of parties that will burn forever brightly in my memory. Then there are those parties I wish I had never gone to; dull, unhappy affairs that sit in my stomach like a badly digested meal. That is what happened to to me in 1978. If I could have foreseen the events of that dreary, miserable evening, I would've opted to stay home instead.
That year, I had no particular plans for that night so my friend Tom and I decided we'd scare up a party somewhere. I arrived at Tom's house(actually it was Mom's house. The putz lived at home.) and Tom wasn't there. His Mom told me that he and his brother went out to a party, thus leaving me with no options but to scare up a party on my own. Not exactly an exciting prospect.
When I eventually asked Tom why he didn't call to tell me about his change of plans, he shrugged and replied," Oh well." What a swill, I mean swell, no I was right the first time; what a swill guy he is. You know, there's nothing like a good friend. And Tom was nothing like a good friend. He was inconsiderate, cheap and petulant. One time, a friend of his and the friends father invited Tom on a golf outing. The friends father paid for everything. Well, at one point during the golf game Tom disappeared, only to reappear a few moments later sucking on a can of soda without bothering to ask his friend or the father if they wanted one. When his friend asked," Why didn't you ask us if we wanted a soda?" Tom's snarky reply was," You didn't tell me you wanted a soda." What a dick! What a piece of shit!
So anyway, there I was driving down Kirkwood Highway in search of a party and I happened upon a bar called Tony G's. Since I didn't want to devote any more of my evening to driving around, I went in and paid the twenty five dollar cover charge. Unfortunately, Tony G's was a disco bar( the disco scene was still going full throttle at that period of time) and I wasn't a particular fan of this musical genre, but it was either that or meander aimlessly around the city in search of a good time. Beggars can't be choosers.
Luckily, I ran into some people I knew and they asked me to sit down at their table. So there I was, sitting at a table with two married couples while I was flying solo, but at least I'd wouldn't be by myself on New Years. I noticed a fetching red headed female wearing a low cut black dress sitting at the bar. I also couldn't help but notice the group of men vying for her attention. She obviously thought very well of herself as she shot down man after man. After deigning to converse with these would be Casanova's for a moment or two, she'd shake her head and turn away from them; her way of saying," You're dismissed." The rejected suitor would slink away and another hopeful approached her seeking to meet with her approval.
Accompanying this woman was a rather dumpy brunette, who I later found out was her friend. In an interesting turn of events, the men the red headed vixen cast aside then in turn made a bee line for Miss Frumpty Dumpty, hoping desperately to make some sort of male/female connection that night. As I surmised in a previous post: Disco Donna and her Friend Fat Cathy, this attractive babe chose to hang out with a rather unattractive female because there would be no competition with the guys. Although, her rejects became her friends prospects, so I guess that's how it goes in the dating food chain.
The people I was hanging out with urged me to try my luck with the red head and I being a cocky, twenty four year old Lothario wanna be, went over to the bar to try to win her heart. The problem is, you have to have a heart to begin with and I'm positive she just didn't have one. I spoke with her for a few minutes before being summarily dismissed like the others. I wasn't at all interested in her dumpy friend, so I slinked back to my table in defeat. Had I been a few years older, I would have realized my chances with the red headed babe were zilch, zero, nada and therefore would not have bothered in the first place. Hey, I like a challenge, but I also know what a brick wall is and I don't enjoy beating my head against one.
My companions(who were regulars at Tony G's) told me that the red head's name was Cathy and that she did this all the time; rejecting every male who approached her until finding a man whom she considered to be good enough for her. Which meant that Cathy's dumpy friend Dawn was the happy recipient of the scraps and crumbs thrown her way by her picky, persnickety friend. They told me she was know as The Saucy Little Red Head At Tony G's(Cathy, if you happen to read this, the appellation was no compliment).
Then to add insult to injury, I finally met an enchanting women and thought she might be a romantic prospect .Perhaps this wouldn't be a waste of an evening after all. As we continued getting to know each other, I found that the two of us had many things in common. Things seemed to be shaping up. Then the other shoe dropped; she was having one last night out on the town before taking her final vows to become a nun. I'm not kidding at all nor am I exaggerating in any way. It was one last gratuitous kick in the ass to round out a totally f***ed up New Years.
It was now after midnight and I'd had more than enough, so I tucked my tail between my legs and crawled away like the licked dog that I was and went home. All I needed to cap off this wretched evening was to have a bird fly over me and shit on my head. What a perfect way to ring in 1979!
As for Tom The Turd, I never saw him again until a few years ago. His first wife had divorced him and although he mentioned something about a court ordered anger management class, Tom didn't go into any detail. I wonder what was being that particular door? Anyway, he talked about getting married again because he wanted to have more children (he had a girl from his first marriage).The woman he was going to marry was someone we both knew when we worked for Delmar Photo back in the seventies, Dotty, who was like himself was in her mid fifties. Tom said they were both taking fertility drugs to increase their chances of having a child.
If I had liked the asshole, I would have wished him luck and left him in peace. But since I loathed the bastard, I was blunt and said that because of their age, having a child was a bad idea. First, since they both were in their mid fifties the chances of having a child with Downs Syndrome extremely high. Second, Tom had a hatchet face, while Dotty was bucktoothed, knobby kneed with frizzy hair and dumb as shit. Even if the kid was spared Downs Syndrome, he or she would end up being hatchet faced, frizzy haired, knock kneed, bucked toothed and dumb as shit. Either way the kid was cursed. Tom snarled," Who cares what you think", gave me the finger and walked away. Oh well, some people can't handle the truth.
